Zootopia: Broken Time
by Old Goat
Summary: Nick & Judy find themselves once again lost in time! Unfortunately, it is during that brutal era of history known as the Dark Ages. This is the Age of Arthur, but he does not rule that bright & shining kingdom of legend. Petty kings squabble with each other even as their kingdoms are threatened by savage raiders and a fox in love with a rabbit is taboo. Sequel to A Paradox in Time
1. Dawn of the King

**Zootopia: Broken Time **

**Nick and Judy find themselves once again lost in time! Unfortunately, it is during that brutal era of history we call the Dark Ages. This is the Age of Arthur, but he does not rule that bright & shining kingdom of legend. Petty kings squabble with each other, even as their kingdoms are threatened by savage raiders and a fox in love with a rabbit is taboo.**

**This is Book 2 of the **_**A Fox Out of Time Series**__**. **_**Book 1 is **_**Zootopia: A Paradox in Time.**_

__I do not own the rights to Zootopia or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable __purposes. _All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures and those characters created by Disney, are products of the author's warped imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figure names appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental._

* * *

**Chapter 1: Dawn of the King**

_**For many a petty king ere Arthur came**_  
_** Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war**_  
_** Each upon other, wasted all the land;**_  
_** And still from time to time the heathen host**_  
_** Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left. **_

(From the poem _Idylls of the King_ by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

**Our story begins with an unassuming child born a long time ago and far, far away from the marvelous city of Zootopia. **

* * *

**465**

"Arthur!" the voice whispered from within the dark cavern. "Come, the future rests on your tiny shoulders." The newly born bear cub gave out a little cry of protest as the old goat in the black raven feather cloak pulled him out of his dead mother's arms.

"Come my child," the white muzzled goat named Merlin sighed as he tried to calm the squalling brown bear cub. He paused and looked around at the slaughtered bodies lying around the cave, the raiders had left after looting the corpses. "Let us get you to your uncle and safety."

He stepped into the cold winter night and took one last bitter glance at the carnage within the cavern, before reaching into the bag which hung from his shoulder. From within the brown bag, he pulled out a black circular ball and after pulling the pin, tossed it against the rocks. The sound was deafening as the explosion brought down the surrounding rubble to seal the blood soaked cavern. "And they call me a wizard!" Merlin laughed to the now screaming and kicking cub. "Come Wart, your destiny awaits you!"

* * *

**489**

The tall muscular brown bear huffed in exhaustion as he stood on the field of battle. His silvery chain mail was splattered red with blood and he paused while cleaning his great blade Caliburn to look around at the carnage surrounding him. His army had broken the raid against the ancient ringfort atop of the hilltop, but the battle had been costly again for the alliance of the Seven Houses. Artorius Pen Draig of the House of Arth, also called Arthur, glanced down at the bodies of the half-naked raiders. Several brown shaggy furred and humped backed savages littered the ground, along with too many of his own clan's bear warriors and those of his allies the bulls. The raiders had called themselves the Tatánka in their strange language and they fought without chain mail or even iron weapons. A few of the short horned raiders did have bronze blades, but most had only flint spears or stone axes.

"Arthur!" a voice called urgently to him and he looked down the slope at his best friend Gwalchmei, or as some called him in the new language, Gawain. The bear's armor was also red with blood and he held a tattered rag to his bleeding arm. "They almost won the day this time. Come here, we found a bear that fought in their ranks. He is mortally wounded, but still alive."

Arthur stepped down the hillside and stood next to his friend. Below in the gore stained grass was a bear, larger than any he had seen before, who was panting in pain. His massive brown paw rested on his stomach, as if he was attempting to push his spilled entrails back into the wound which had been sliced open by a wolf warrior's spear. A half dozen of those wolves laid scattered across the field where the bear had charged, with his claws slashing, into their shield wall.

"Does he speak either the old tongue or the new?" the tall handsome brown bear asked the wolves who stood around the dying bear.

"Nay my lord," a wolf answered. "His babble seems to be no more than grunts and growls."

"Then put him out of his pain," Arthur sighed as he looked back at the field of battle. "He was a brave warrior and should not suffer anymore."

The only answer he received was the fallen bear's grunt, as a wolf's long iron tipped ash wood spear was driven into his heart.

"Why have they come here?" Gawain asked

"Who knows, perhaps seeking gold and silver or maybe even slaves? Which house guards the northwestern approaches to our lands?"

"The House of Llwynog , my lord."

"Why are they not on the field of battle today?"

"The foxes are still angry over the execution of Sir Bedivere by the House of Cwningen."

"He should have known better then to seduce Arawen. She was promised to Conchobar, the Chief of the Western Mountain Hares."

"No my lord, he didn't seduce her, they fell in love and for that they sentenced him to death. To execute him was wrong, especially after he and his soldiers saved Caer Cwningen from being sacked by an army of raiders from the highlands led by another red fox named An Sionnach."

"It was within the rights of the House of Cwningen to execute him for his actions…no, their actions. Neither I nor the other Great Houses, could stop them from seeking justice."

"But they condemned them both to be burned alive for their crime of what they deemed as immoral love?"

"We lost two good knights that day. Sir Gaheris killed both his best friend Sir Bedivere and then his own sister Arawen to save their honor. I am told afterwards, he broke his sword in half and left Caer Cwningen to repent by becoming a hermit."

"Sir Gaheris was an honorable knight, he will be sorely missed."

"Sir Bedivere's brother Tristan does not know of his brother's death, he had already set sail with your cousin Cai northward towards the land of ice with your offer of peace."

"His mission is essential to end the raids by the white bears upon the homes of the seal folk along the coast. They say that the first King of the North is a white wolf."

"I've been told they call him Wigena Baldor, the "Lord of Warriors".

"Then hopefully he will receive the branch of peace from the Seven Houses."

"There is talk among the warriors of proclaiming you more than just our Dux bellorum. They talk of proclaiming you the High King."

"I am content being their Chief of Battles. Let them listen to their kings and chieftains, I would not have war between the Seven Houses over a mere title."

* * *

**Present Day **

"I still can't believe that I couldn't think of anything else to say?" Nick softly whined to Judy. "There was just no way other way to explain what happened to us when I was confronted by Chief Bogo and the rest. We were at our desk in the Police Station one minute and then less than a few hours later, I was holding you bleeding to death in the middle of a road in the swamps..."

"It was only a flesh wound silly," Judy interrupted with a giggle. "You foxes are always so over dramatic!"

"We foxes are always the best at what we do," Nick answered as he always does when she teases him. "Anyways, they all thought I was crazy until that pistachio munching cat from the ZBI grabbed us both and hauled our tails over here to the University of Zootopia!"

"I know Nick," Judy sighed as she ran a paw along his muzzle. "There was no other explanation, you told the truth."

"So now we are stuck quarantined here at the university, being prodded and probed. Come on Fluff, we time traveled to the 1920's…the 1920's…and I danced with the legendary Josephine Barker! What do these eggheads do when they get their paws on us? They give us a damn physical! _ Lean over Mister Wilde and cough_ is what that doctor told me, what the hell did he think I was hiding there under my tail?"

The rabbit giggled, "My poor handsome fox!"

"You should have seen that doctor's surprise when I told him that I got all the bruises from being beaten by the police!"

"Well that has been over several months ago and we are both now healed."

"If I have to see another psychiatrist, I really will have a mental disorder!"

"Well, I always thought you were somewhat unbalanced!" Judy giggled.

"Har...har!" Nick chuckled back. "So they finally let you online?"

"Yep, I've been blocked from communicating with anyone. They are however, letting me go online and I am trying to find out what happened to Miss Judy."

"Let me guess, she married Rubin and had three hundred kits?"

"No not that many, she was however very easy to find. Judy Warren was one of the top ZBI agents and she did bring down Al Catpone by going after him for tax evasion. It was too bad that she didn't officially get credit for the idea. Being a female, her early role in the department was administrative."

"Ah, she was a secretary to the Field Director himself! It must have been that good old Twentieth century sexism at work! You do know Carrots that a female's place was in the home raising her children and awaiting her mate to return from working."

"Slick, I doubt Rubin ever thought he would find his Judy contently waiting for him at home."

"Good point!"

"So what happened to our other friends?"

"Rubin and Miss Judy married. Rubin started a chain of grocery stores which were very popular in the Forties and Fifties. He later sold out to a chain of supermarkets in the early sixties and became a vocal supporter of civil rights."

"So he was rich?"

"Very! Miss Judy stayed with the ZBI during the thirties and the war years, her knowledge of the future enabled her to nab some of the worse criminals in history."

"She cheated?"

"No, I checked the Crime Museum database and she was there all the time! Judy Warren was my inspiration for staying with the idea of being a cop and I just didn't know she was me until we got back."

"That is kind of freaky. I just still wonder what it was that she was supposed to have stopped us from doing? The reason why my rich and handsome other self, sent the watch to her in the first place?

"I think she was supposed to keep me from being killed."

"Well, I am glad she did! I'd hate to have been that miserable fox without you in my life. Even with all that money, my other self never found happiness."

"What about the two Grey brothers?"

"Zach was Gideon's great-grandfather, he continued to farm near Bunnyburrow. Ezekiel went back to Zootopia with Rubin and managed one of his friend's warehouses."

"Figures!"

"Little Ricky?"

"He moved to Hopperville with his aunt and uncle and became a decorated war hero during the war. He returned home and went to law school, married and had six children."

"Good for him."

Judy got quiet for a few moments as she looked up into the fox's emerald eyes. Nick had slid into the bed next to her and she pushed the dark blue sweatshirt he was wearing up so she could lean against his white fur. "Carrots, this is not the time or the place to do that! We are being watched by cameras."

"Sorry, I just wanted to feel your fur against me," she apologized. "I have to tell you something."

"Oh, it can't be that bad…can it?"

"Nick…it's…it's just that you great-grandfather Richard must not have received the letter or didn't believe what you wrote. He was still killed during the Happy Town riot."

Nick looked at the ceiling as tears formed in his eyes. "I tried, but I couldn't change history," he finally sniffled. He felt Judy press herself into his chest fur and ran a paw down one of her ears. Wiping a tear with his other paw, he finally let out a long sigh. "Maybe some things can't be changed after all?"

"Maybe not," she softy answered as she reached up and hugged him. "But you tried."

"Excuse me!" a tall ibex in a white lab coat called over to the couple. "The doctors want Nick to try the watch again."

"I've tried that damn thing how many times?" Nick snapped back in agitation. "It is just a broken pocket watch. Whatever it did before, doesn't work anymore!"

"Still…" the young ibex replied.

"Okay, sorry…it's that it must have been just a onetime deal," Nick sighed. "Come on Fluff, why don't you join me this time?" Judy hopped out of the bed and holding Nick's paw, she followed him down the hallway into a large laboratory room were there sat a single chair, a table, and several cameras. Nick plopped himself down in the chair and she stepped next to him, holding onto his arm with her paw.

"Mister Wilde, this is supposed to be another test with just you and not Miss Hopps," a voice began to say over the intercom.

"You've had me try and try and try," Nick snarled in frustration. "Let's just get this session over with so I can have some lunch!"

"Mister Wilde…" the voice on the intercom began to protest as the fox picked up the broken watch and gave the stem a turn. Nick's eyes widen in surprise as the minute hand began to move backwards again!

"Fluff!" he began to call out in panic. He felt Judy's paws tighten on his arm. "Judddddy!"

He felt himself falling and grunted as he landed hard on the ground. Dizzily, he finally opened his eyes and felt something wet and cold against his arm. "Great!" he moaned out. "I almost drowned this time! Judy are you okay?" His ears flattened as he heard the sound of the rabbit vomiting not too far from him.

"I'll live Nick," she finally answered. "Where are we this time?"

He sat up and looked around, there was a pond of stagnate water covered with brownish green slime next to him and he moved his tail out of the nasty water. All around them were tall majestic trees reaching up toward the bright blue sky. "The question is when?" he finally answered as he put his arm around her shoulder as she helped him stand up. "We must be in a time before Zootopia was settled."

"Why did we fall so far?" Judy asked as she looked around with wide eyes.

"We were in a room on the second story of the building, so I guess we dropped that height. At least we didn't end up in a tree or something."

"What do we do now?"

"I have no idea? I just hope we didn't go so far back in time that we get eaten by dinosaurs."

"Or savage foxes!" Judy quickly answered with a smile. "Remind me to bring a gun the next time this happens."

"No, you need to remind me not to touch this damn watch!"

Judy's ears shot up and she looked around. "Hey Nick, do you hear someone singing?

* * *

**First, I must make my apologies to any of the readers who are Scottish, Welsh, or Irish for playing loose with their native languages. **

**Merlin calls baby Arthur "Wart", can anyone guess where this name came from? **

**Arth = Bear (Welsh) Cwningen = Rabbit (Welsh) Llwynog = Fox (Welsh) An Sionnach**** = The Fox (Irish) ****Mac****Coinneach = Son of Handsome (Scottish Gaelic)**

**Aranwen is a Welsh name meaning "Silver and blessed". **

**Tatánka is the ****Lakota name for what we call the ****North American bison bull.**

**This story will not follow the traditional Arthurian legends, but draw upon them and other old Celtic tales as inspiration. The Seven Families are based on the seven minor kingdoms (ruled by a mormaer or later earl) of Scotland and the seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the Heptarchy. **

**The tale of Bedivere & ****Arawen is inspired by the old story of the star-crossed lovers****Tristan & Isolde. A fair knight who falls in love with one who is promised to another. In this story it is a knightly fox who falls in love with his best friend's sister, a lovely rabbit princess.  
**


	2. Court of Discontent

**Chapter 2: Court of Discontent**

* * *

**_"A legend is sung of when England was young and knights were brave and bold._**

**_The good king had died and no one could decide who was rightful heir to the throne."_**

_(_From Disney's 1963 film _The Sword in the Stone_)

**The kings gather to celebrate "their" victory and Merlin puts them in their place.**

**Wingedkatt gets the "Gold Star" because Sir Ector did indeed call the young Arthur by the name Wart in Disney's **_**The Sword in the Stone.**_

* * *

**489**

The High Court of the Seven Houses had gathered for a feast to celebrate the army's victory over the invaders. The joyous news had been carried by a courier, who brought the glad tiding to the rulers of the land and they gathered at the large hillfort's mead hall. At the great table, which towered above that of all the other nobles, there were grand chairs for each of the seven kings and all were occupied by their respective lords, all save for three. The chair of the House of Arth had remained empty since the death of King Uther, his brother Sir Ector had sat in a smaller chair beside it as befitting that house's Royal Steward and after his death, his son Sir Cai. But the stouthearted bear had been dispatched to the far north as an emissary of peace and so the chair sat empty tonight. Also vacant was the chair of the House of Blaidd, for King Maelgwn was with his wolf warriors upon the field of battle.

The last chair was rarely occupied and it belonged to the dwellers of the so called Drowned Lands, the House of Foroedd, and they were ruled by the enigmatic Fisher King. However, often the seal lord's duties at court were attended to by a mysterious female otter dubbed the Lady of the Lake.

Even in the flickering of the burning rushes, it was evident that discontent was amongst the minor houses, who cast warily glances over their cups of mead or wine at the kings who sat above them. "They think that this victory is theirs and not Arthur's!" a somewhat drunken hedgehog in a blue linen tunic grumbled to his friend. "They set no chair at the table for good Arthur."

The small weasel glanced around before he answered, "Fie friend, he is in the field with his war band and doth not have the least patience for yon petty kings and their courtly intrigues."

"Still it is said that he is the son of Uther, surely the bears should proclaim him their king?"

"Nay, he is base born and a very bastard. No crown shall touch his forehead."

"Yet if the army proclaims him a king, which of these fools would be brave enough to meet them in battle?"

"Bide thy tongue scoundrel before one of yon kings has it removed from thy head!" the weasel warned the small hedgehog. "There is more afoot then thy prattling, look hence at the House of Llwynog."

"The foxes are still bitter with the House of Cwningen over the execution of Sir Bedivere."

"With their King Maelgwn away, I doth fear they shall seek rightful vengeance."

"Surely those here tonight with the House of Blaidd will keep their king's vassals under control?"

"Verily, their chief is sorely vexed by King Cyflym and the reynards doth chaff for revenge, which yon council has forbade them."

"Sir Bedivere was the eldest and heir. His death...no his murder as I shall proclaim it...was a great loss to us lesser houses and clans. He led Arthur's scouts, in which many of your kin serve. His brother Tristan has not the heart of a warrior, but that of a bard, and will be ill-suited for the chieftainship."

"Aye and if those two houses come to blows tonight, it will nay bode well for yon foxes. Verily, the kings may outlaw their house itself."

"I shudder to think upon such a loss! The foxes may not be as bold in battle as their kin the wolves and have no place within the ranks of the shield wall, but they devious and sly. They are the eyes and ears of our war band and without them, Arthur would be as one blind upon the field of battle."

"Ah…King Lot rises to toast the gathering! Perchance he will recognize Arthur as the author of this grand feast and truly proclaim his victory?"

The large gray bull stood, towering above the other kings. The blood of the ancient aurochs was within him, as his huge horns attested. They protruded outwards from each side of his head and were elaborately decorated with bands of gold and silver. His silken tunic was royal red with green stripes, although he wore a woolen blanket like a poncho to warm himself from the evening's chill. A large battle ax was laid upon the table before him as a reminder that he was once a great warrior. But age had grown upon him and it slowed him enough so that he no longer ventured with his warriors upon the field of battle.

King Lot slammed his massive hoof against the table and called out for silence. "We have won a great victory against the barbarians who have sallied forth against our sacred lands. Our warriors have slain a great many of the enemy and brought honor upon the Seven Houses, for that I salute them!" He raised his wood bowl of wine towards the gathered nobles. "To victory!"

His toast brought grumbles from the gathering, but no one spoke what they thought too loud, that is until a voice called out from the doorway, "A victory brought forth by Arthur!"

The massive bull looked up at the intruder at first in anger, but then it seemed as if the very blood drained from his silver furred speckled snout and he sat down.

"Arthur!" others called out, much to the displeasure of the kings who sat above them. "Artorius Pen Draig" others proclaimed.

"King Aldroen, get your wretched vassal under control!" Lot grumbled as he looked at the goat in the black raven's feather cloak who had swept into the hall. The ram in an imperial purple silk tunic, who also sat the king's table, stared back at the bull with a frown.

"I am not kin to nor vassal of the House of Defaid!" the goat laughed. "Myrddin Emrys is a vassal of no house or king, especially one who kept his warriors at home and did not join the war band upon the field of honor."

"My warriors were needed to guard our flank from the bandits who live in the hills," Aldroen nervously replied. It was quite evident that he was attempting to avoid the goat's gaze. "If they had not been gathering, I would have led my rams to join the army in battle."

"Surely some of the great number of warriors you command could have joined the shield wall?" Merlin challenged. "The bears, bulls, wolves and bucks held the field today. Where were the other houses?"

"Chide us not Merlin!" a tall stately red stag spoke as he stood in his black priestly garb. "We all serve the gods in our own ways."

"I would not speak ill of you good King Guethelin, for your archer bucks were upon the field today and many of those you call savages fell before their arrows. However, I did not see any of the rabbits with their ballista on the field, nor were any of our allies the boars with their long axes present."

"Surely Merlin, you do know that the House of Cwningen suffered greatly by the paws of that rogue An Sionnach and his raiders?"

"For which they still owe thanks to the House of Blaidd or more specifically, the House of Llwynog."

The rabbits and hares called out in protest, as the foxes stood and shouted back in anger. King Cyflym wobbled to stand upon his chair while he fumbled to draw his long dagger like sword.

"Do you wish to bring violence to this peaceful gathering?" the priestly stag challenged Merlin, while he also placed a calming hoof on the hare king's shoulder. "What was done was within the laws of the land, as sanctioned by this council."

"A council which has sat far too long without having a High King."

"Our houses have ruled together since good King Constans was murdered by the upstart Vortigern."

"Votigern who was laid low by Uther and yet you do not recognize his born son Arthur as the true king of the House of Arth!"

"Who sits upon the throne of the House of Arth is up to the bears and their vassals."

"Yet, this council does interfere."

"Arthur is a bastard and not royal born!" King Lot scoffed as he took a gulp from his wine bowl.

"As if your own ancestors were more than just liegemammals of the foreign conquers who ruled these lands? They who finally left you and yours to fend for yourself over a hundred years ago? So as the grandson of those who abased themselves as conquered serfs, tell me what does being royal born truly mean?"

Merlin was interrupted as a messenger entered the hall, the deer in a yellow linen tunic panted as he knelt before King Guethelin. "Arthur sends his greetings and has called for reinforcements, another fleet of the savages has been sighted," the messenger announced. "War is upon us again!"

* * *

**Present Day**

The red fox sat up in the bed with a groan while he looked around the dark room, everything was as it should be and he felt the vixen's tail shift off of him and curl along her sleeping body. He reached a paw over and gently stroked the reddish orange fur on her thigh. She mumbled something and rolled onto her stomach, reaching for the blanket that he had discarded earlier when he had sat up panting from the overwhelming feeling of fear he felt in his dream. Nicolaus had been plagued by bad dreams since the villagers found him wandering in the hills.

He had no memory of who he was or how he got there, but they took him back to their homes and accepted him into their lives. Tonight these dreams had changed, he now remembered enchanting purple colored eyes looking lovingly up at him. His heart was stirred at the sight of them, but he knew of no vixens with such colored eyes. His fiancée Marie's eyes were brown, natural brown like the earth they farmed. She was a farmer's daughter, a carrot farmer…no... they grow cabbage and wheat…not carrots. Carrots? Why did that sound familiar?

The pleasant dream he had earlier quickly changed back to his familiar nightmare, that of a huge white paw shoving his head under icy water until he began to drown, then the fiery explosion, and finally the thin dashing hare in the black suit. Nicolaus slowly crawled out of the bed and softly padded his way through the dark cottage. Slowly, so as to keep it from creaking, he opened the door and stepped out into the garden. A waxing moon illuminated the land around him, the shadowy hills and the glistening distant sea beyond. Below the farm was the village, the cottages were now dark as the villagers, his friends, slumbered.

This was paradise to him, not the bright lights of that other place. Why did he dream of that city, the one the sailors called Zootopia? He went online at the village library and looked at photos of that place, all so familiar in some ways and different in others. He felt what he saw was wrong, all those pictures of different species happily mingling together, prey with predator. Somehow he knew that was wrong, prey feared predator…wait! Where did that come from? He shook his head as he remembered small sheep ewe's sarcastic voice saying that to them from above as he stalked someone in in a pit. A pit? When was he in a pit?

The fox gave a soft whine at the memories, because he felt deep in his soul that they were not…could not... be his.

"Nicolaus?" a feminine voice called out. He turned to see Maria standing in the cottage doorway, the vixen was wrapped in the blanket. She was a vision of loveliness and he cared for her deeply. His ears flattened as he remembered those dream eyes, the purple ones, and he felt as if he had cheated on his fiancée in his dreams.

"I'm fine sweetheart, I just needed some night air," he replied with a smile.

"So you walk around naked in the garden?" she giggled. "Come inside before someone sees you!"

He began to walk towards her, but paused to glance up at the moon again. Why did this not seem right?

* * *

**As I explained in the last chapter, the Seven Houses are modeled on the seven minor ****Pictish kingdoms of what became Scotland and also the seven petty Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later became England. I am aware the George R. R. Martin has seven Houses or kingdoms in his _Game of Thrones_ series. However, am not a big fan of his works as he just kept killing off every character I liked in the first two books and so I stopped reading his works (I also do get HBO). A few of my favorite stories are Bernard Cromwell's _Saxon Tales_ series and Mary Stewart's_ Merlin Trilogy. _**

**The seven Families or petty kings in my story are as follows:  
**

**House of Arth – House of Bears with no current king since Uther was killed. Sir Cai (Kay) is the house's royal steward or regent. **

**House of Blaidd - House of Wolf with King Maelgwn ruling. The House of Llwynog or House of Fox is a minor house loyal to King Maelgwn.**

**House of Cwningen – House of Rabbit with King Cyflym as ruler. Many of the small mammals owe their allegiance to this house. **

**House of Foroedd – House of Seas with a seal known at the Fisher King ruling. He is often represented by his regent, a female otter called the Lady of the Lake. **

**House of Defaid – House of Sheep ruled by the devious King Aldroen. The goats are also vassals of his house. **

**House of ****Carw**** – House of Deer with the priestly King Guethelin upon its throne.**

**House of ****Tarw**** \- House of Bull ruled by the once powerful King Lot. **

**There are some mammals, such as bats and some sea mammals, which do not belong to a royal house. The boars are invaders who were invited by king ****Votigern as mercenaries. Arthur and the army of the Seven**** Houses defeated them in previous battles, although they did not have the power to drive them off the land they had occupied along the coast. The boars are based on the Saxons who battled the British during this time in human history. **

**Yep, the "other" Nick Wilde from my first story is back! **


	3. Ashes & Feathers

**Chapter 03: Ashes & Feathers**

* * *

_**He pierced three hundred, most bold, he cut down the center and wing.  
He was worthy before the noblest host, he gave from his herd horses in winter.  
He fed black ravens on the wall of the fortress, although he was not Arthur.**_

From the _Y Gododdin (_Book of Aneirin)

**A devious plot by a petty king is revealed and Nick and Judy met a strange vixen. **

* * *

**489**

Ashes fell from the sky like snow. Gray and foreboding, they marked the demise of another village and the end of many a peasant's life. The red fox knelt in the grass and held the dead vixen close to his chest as he watched the distant flames. "She came out of nowhere," he sobbed. "The she wolf was foaming at her mouth and was crazed by the plague. The villagers were caught unawares as she charged at them with her teeth gnashing and my wife was bitten."

"There are no herbs we know of who could have saved her my child," the matronly red deer doe said as she placed her hoof softly upon the fox's broad shoulders. "The king's warriors had to put her to the ax to keep the illness from spreading."

"But they only killed the predators!"

"The plague is spread by a predator's bite or so it is claimed."

"I have seen a goat with the foaming sickness before."

"But he was bitten by a weasel who was ill."

"Most of my neighbors were not taken with the plague, but were killed anyways."

"The king must protect his subjects and that is what good King Aldroen does."

"By killing the innocent!" the fox snarled as he clutched the body to his chest.

"By killing those who are deemed dangerous to his kingdom," the doe sighed. "Where will you go from here? Surely if the king's warriors find that you survived, they will hunt you down."

"I have yet to know a ram who could catch a fox!"

"They will chase you and sooner or later corner you, they are relentless."

"Then I will away to the lands ruled by King Maelgwn, I have kin in the village on the edge of the great shirwode."

It had been several days since King Aldroen was humiliated by the presence of Merlin at the great feast at Caer Camlann and he now stood on the ramparts of his fortress, while he watched the flickering flames of the distant village as it burned. His warriors had marched out midday when a runner brought news of the plague and had they slain any potential carriers of that dreaded disease and purified the land with fire. The ram king had no qualms about the loss of his subject's lives, for they were only predators and the world was better without their kind.

The fortress was reclaimed from an older hilltop ringfort which had been abandoned after the conquest of the land by the legionnaires. Now the natives who built the fort, like the legions his ancestors came with, were long gone. The soldiers had returned home to defend their far away grand city from invasion by barbarians, leaving he and his fellow kings alone to defend themselves from any new invaders. King Lot held the north, the bull king ruled from a fortress along the once great stone wall which the legions had used to keep the mountain savages in check. But that chain of forts, just like the legion built city of Camlann, was now in disrepair.

His own fortress was modest compared to the great stone buildings that his ancestors had built. There were three sets of steep deep ditches dug out along the hill's side, they were designed to slow attacking warriors down. Atop of the hill was a stout wall with dressed stone twice a bull's height and backfilled with rubble and dirt as its base. On top of that strong structure was a sturdy wooden palisade, which protected his archers and spearmammals within. A massive wooden gate controlled the entrance into the compound where he and his close follower's homes were found, along with his great hall. These buildings were also made from wood, with bundles of thatches layered upon the roof to shed off the rain and snow. A single hole in the hall's center allowed the smoke to waft out and sweet grass was strewn upon the hard packed dirt floor to sweeten the air.

He looked eastward toward the ruins of the long abandoned villa of his forefathers, with its grand white washed stone buildings and red tile roofs. It had now mostly crumbled and collapsed from neglect after his family had left it because it was indefensible from the raiders. In the olden days, none would have dared molest them in that grand place because to do so would bring the wrath of the iron clad legionnaires. His family had come from that distant land with the legions and now they were a great tribe in this land. He stared at the ruins again and swore another oath that he would return this island to its former greatness and rebuild the grand villa, despite the foolish interference by those other indigenous great houses.

King Aldroen pulled his heavy wool cloak tighter and tried to peer into the darkness. Like all of his kind, the ram's eyesight was poor at best and even worse at night. Beyond his fortress was the lands tilled by his serfs and their humble cottages, farmsteads, and villages. To the west were the mountains where King Maelgwn held sway, his kingdom was related to the wolf clans across the straits in the nearby green island. "Ah, what I could do with that land!" he muttered to himself. "Such rich soil is wasted on those ignorant barbarians!"

There was a shout from the gate and he looked towards the warrior who was baahing for his attention, it was then that he noticed that the boars had arrived. Pulling his cloak even tighter, he descended the stairway towards the muddy courtyard and his great hall.

After having had his mud caked hoofs washed by a slave, he donned his imperial purple toga and took a seat on the grandly carved great chair. In his hoofs he held a fancy staff of ivory made from the tusk of some huge beast whose tribe lived in a distant land far to the south of their island. These creatures had also come with his ancestors to this land as part of the grand army, but they did not stay. He wished that someone knew what they were called, for their image was on the damaged fresco in the villa, but now only stories remained of these powerful giants and their valor on the field of battle.

A boar with his tucks decoratively carved approached him. The chieftain, who called himself an Ætheling, was crudely dressed in a coarse brown hemp tunic under his overlapping scale plate armor. Bands of of silver and gold glittered on his short furred muddy brown arms and he had a great knife hung from his belt. "Our offering!" the boar grunted. "As we agreed, I came for the offering for our gods."

"Patience Erkenswine, you shall have your sacrifices for your one-eyed god of war," King Aldroen sighed. "My warriors will bring them to your men in the courtyard. The gold and silver too, a chest full as agreed."

"Then you will have my warrior's service until the winter solstice."

"As agreed and how many more of your kinsmammals are coming across to the coast?"

"There will be more than enough to turn the tide against Arthur and his army when we are needed."

"Then we continue."

"No, there are problems."

"The Outlanders?"

"They have attacked our settlements too and the Witan advises me that we should ally ourselves with Arthur to secure our lands."

"Has your council considered what would happen if Arthur found out about your sacrifices?"

The boar cast the king a glare before the called out to his thanes in the courtyard. King Aldroen only glanced at the ax warriors as they took the stout rope which was yoked around the necks of several young lambs and yanked them towards the gate.

"More lambs for the slaughter!" a grizzled ram warrior commented as he entered the hall and angrily tossed his iron helmet onto a table. "I have been told that they roast those poor children alive and then eat them, bones and all."

"I care not what they do to a few peasants," the king dismissively answered the warrior in an agitated tone. "There are plenty more in the villages, it keeps their allegiance and that is what is important."

"We should join with Arthur and drive them from our island! I was with him where the Glein meets the sea, it was a glorious battle."

"It was a waste of precious warriors, since the sea boars could have been just bought off again."

"I wonder how long it will be this time until they turn on us?"

"ENOUGH SIR EREC!" the king snarled as he stood up and walked towards his private chambers. He and the warrior ram had argued too much about his alliance with the boars in the past. "If you believe in Arthur so much, then you have my leave to join him. I am sure your brother would not object to your lands." Then he stopped and glared at the warrior again, "But if you leave, you may never come back!" With those words, the king closed the doors to his chambers wit a slam.

The ram grabbed up his helmet, cast one last glance at the room where King Aldroen had fled, and with a hoof full of his followers left that night to march and join Arthur's army. The virtuous knight knew he left a mortal enemy behind.

* * *

Judy followed the sound of the singing, while Nick tried to keep up with her as she weaved through the dense woods. The trees surrounding them were huge with branches reaching towards the sky, dense with green leaves. Suddenly before them was an open meadow of tall grasses and flowers. in the middle of that idyllic place was of all things, a reddish orange furred red fox vixen in a flowing blue cloak and a tall pointed cap. "Do you see what I see?" Nick mumbled in surprise to Judy. The vixen was seemingly paying no attention to her surroundings as she sang a strange old song while she picked flowers.

"Nick!" Judy warned as she frantically grabbed his arm. She was pointing towards the sky and a huge bird winging its way towards the vixen.

"It's an eagle!"

"She doesn't see it! We've got to warn her!"

Nick shouted as he waved his arms and ran out into the field. At the sound of the fox's cries, the eagle broke its dive and soared back into the sky. The vixen however, looked up first at the bird and then the fox. Tossing off her strange pointed cap, she angrily stormed across the field straight towards him.

"That was close!" he said as he turned back to the vixen and towards Judy, who was still at the tree line holding of all things a stick, as if she could use it to beat off the attack of the winged terror.

**"**Look out Nick!" Judy cried out, but her warning was too late as a powerful reddish orange fist smacked into his muzzle and sent him sprawling.

Gently touching his nose, Nick looked up at his attacker and gaped at what he saw. Despite the silvery coat of chainmail she wore, the angry vixen was very, very sexy looking. "By the gods, that was supposed to be my kill FOX!" she growled at him with her teeth bared. "I spent days luring yon bird into a trap and thou ruined everything!"

"I thought you were in danger?" the tod tried to explain. "That's why I shouted to warn you!"

"In danger? In danger? Do I look like some mealy mouthed fair maiden who sits around waiting for some damn knight to charge in and save her from peril? Nay! I am a warrior…a spear maiden…a hunter of eagles!"

"Well how was I supposed to know that? You were standing in the middle of the field picking flowers, wearing a huge cloak and that silly pointed hat."

"What be wrong with my hennin? My brother brought me that fine hat when he returned from the Great Court. He claimed it twas the latest finery worn by all the ladies."

"It looks like a dunce cap!"

"Fie, what is a dunce?" the vixen asked as she tilted her head with curiosity.

"Would you two stop bickering?" Judy frantically yelled from inside of the woods. "Your winged friend is coming back!"

Both of the foxes looked skyward to see that the bird had now circled back towards them. It was dark brown in color with tan in its feathers and had a massive wing span of over seven feet. The eagle flexed its sharp barbed black claws as it turned to make a dive.

"I think that is a Golden eagle," Judy cried out as she peeked from behind a tree. "Quick, get into the woods!"

Nick grunted as the vixen shoved him away and turned to sprint towards where she had left her cloak. "You don't have time for that!" he cried out and began to run after her.

The bird swooped lower and straight towards the vixen, but she dodged its aerial strike by only inches and rolled into the grass. The bird landed in confusion and looked back at her and then over at Nick before it began to flap its wings again and lifted off in his direction.

"Nick!" Judy screamed as the tod froze at the sight of the large raptor flying at him.

He raised his arms as if he could ward off the bird's sharp talons and flinched. He could hear Judy's frantic scream and looked back into the approaching bird's black beady eyes just as the eagle was about to strike. Suddenly the bird flapped erratically and Nick saw that a sharp iron tipped spear had been driven by the vixen into its back. The five foot shaft pinned the bird to the ground as the warrior jumped upon its back and cut its throat with a long silvery blade.

"Fie that was close!" the strange vixen panted as she rolled onto her back into the green grass and smiled up at Nick. "Thou makest fine bait! Now serf, you can help me pluck that beast's feathers for my war cloak."

Nick looked down at the vixen lounging on the ground with a frown. "I am not a serf," he replied."I'm a cop!"

"Sorry, I took thee for one, so you are a...what was that word? Oh yes, a cop! I should have known that thee were some kind of nobility by thy flowery ways."

"Wait! My what?"

"Flowery ways, like a damsel in the court! Thy fur is groomed closely and thou hast no male musk. Verily, thou art well fed and somewhat feeble, as if thou dost not work much with thy paws…"

"I bathe with soap and water, you should try doing that once and a while."

"Surely thou dost not object to my scent?" the vixen replied with a grin as she sat up in the grass. "Thy cute nose hath been twitching since we met."

Nick tried not to blush as he glared at her, she did smell good. She had a woodsy, very feminine foxy musky smell, that stirred…He gave a startled jump when a voice spoke from behind him.

"You killed it!" Judy exclaimed as she joined the two foxes.

"Ah, now I seeth!" the vixen giggled, as she looked first at the fox and then the bunny. "Thou art one of them!"

* * *

**The plague in this story refers to rabies, which is often transmitted from one host to another by saliva. The illness causes inflammation of the brain resulting in confusion, violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, a fear of water, partial paralyses of the limbs, and ultimately death. A vaccine for rabies was discovered by Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux in the late 1800's.**

**Shirwode (Shire Wood) is another name for Sherwood Forest. A fox moving to Sherwood Forest, I wonder whose ancestor this might be? **

**Caer Camlann would be the Camelot of legend, the famous castle from where King Arthur ruled the land in many of the romantic and adventurous stories later written about him. "****_Don't let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief shining moment / That was known as Camelot." _****(From the play Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe)**

**River Glein refers to the first major battle in which Arthur defeated his enemies. The early Welsh writer Nennius wrote in the ****_Historia Brittonum_**** that this as the first of Arthur's twelve great victories. ****_"Then it was, that the magnanimous Arthur, with all the kings and military force of Britain, fought against the Saxons. And though there were many more noble than himself, yet he was twelve times chosen their commander, and was as often conqueror. The first battle was in the mouth of the river which is called Glein. The second and third and fourth and fifth on another river which is called Dubglas and is in the region Linnuis. The sixth battle on the river which is called Bassas. The seventh battle was in the forest of Celidon, that is Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth battle was near the fort Guinnion, where Arthur bore the image of the Holy Virgin, mother of God, upon his shoulders, and through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the holy Mary, put the Saxons to flight, and pursued them whole day with great slaughter. The ninth battle was fought in the city of the Legion. He fought the tenth battle on the shore of the river called Tribruit. The eleventh battle was fought on the hill called Agned. The twelfth was a most severe contest, when Arthur penetrated to the hill of Badon. In this engagement, nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, no one but the Lord affording him assistance. In all these engagements the Britons were successful."_**

**The one-eyed god of war is Oden. **

**Sir Erec is a Knight of the ****_Round Table_**** in the Arthurian legends and is in Chrétien de Troyes' romantic story, ****_Erec and Enide._**


	4. Arthur & the Giant

**Chapter 4: Arthur & the "Giant"**

* * *

_**As they rode together Arthur said, "I have no sword," but Merlin bade him be patient and he would soon give him one. **__**In a little while they came to a large lake, and in the midst of the lake Arthur beheld an arm rising out of the water, holding up a sword. **_

From the Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table as adapted from the Book of Romance by Andrew Land

**In my previous chapter, the vixen referred to Nick having flowery ways like a damsel's in the court. Just think about how someone in the Dark Ages would judge one of us! Few of us still do backbreaking work and are as seasonally malnourished a peasant would have been back then. Our clothing is clean, as are our bodies. It was doubtful that a serf owned very many clothes and bathing became frowned upon in the western world. No deodorant or toothpaste…yikes…there is no wonder that most serfs did not live to see forty winters. **

**I promise that Nick & Judy are in the next chapter, plus more on Nicholas. **

* * *

The large bear in the modest saffron yellow dyed linen tunic, raised his sword high into the air and admired it yet again. It was difficult for Arthur to still believe that he had been gifted such a fine weapon by the Lady of the Lake. The sword Caliburn was harder than any other iron blade made by his blacksmiths and was sharp enough to easily hew through the stoutest wooden shield.

_"It was made with a magical metal from a stone that fell from the sky into the northern sea," the mysterious otter in the sea blue silk dress explained to him many years ago when she handed him the sword. "Infused by our craftsmen from the lands far to the east into what they call tamahagane or jewel steel. In some ways you could say that this blade was drawn out of that stone."_

_"It is most beautiful my lady," Arthur replied as he bowed deeply to the otter known as the Lady of the Lake. "I am most honored to be given such a gift."_

_"They made only three swords from the metal and each they claim has its own soul. This is Caliburn or Caladbolg, which means "voracious" in the old tongue. It was first carried by King Fergus mac Roich of the Green Isle. Næġling is its brother and it was lost in the cave of the dragon and the other sword was Angau Coch, which was carried by good Nennius when he fought the Legions."_

_"It truly is a great weapon."_

_"Mark my words Arthur! This blade can only be carried by one who is worthy, a warrior who places the mammals of this island above his own personal ambitions. In the paws of someone unworthy, it will bring ruin upon that poor fool and all who follow him."_

_"I will strive to be worthy of such a gift."_

_"I know you will my silly bear!"_

"Arthur!" the sound of his name being cried out roused him from his memories and the bear blinked several times as he looked towards the warrior who had called his name from out of the darkness. He squinted into the night, cursing himself for looking too long at the fire and now being temporarily night blind.

"Fie, who is it?" he challenged the sentry.

"We have more troops! They are rams from the House of Defaid!"

"The House of Defaid, I was not expecting King Aldroen to send any troops? How many have come?"

"There is no more than a mere dozen of us," a deeper voice answered. Arthur stood to face the large grizzled looking ram in well-worn chain mail. "We come without Aldroen's blessing and we are now outcasts from his kingdom."

"Sir Erec!" the bear joyfully replied as he set his sword down by the fire and took the knight's hoof in his paws. "You are greatly welcome!"

"I am sorry that I have brought a paltry few warriors with me."

"Still your expertise is most welcome, but you left the service of King Aldroen?"

"He is dreaming of the old ways, picking at his schemes as if he can bring back that which is long gone. He dreams of building the land that the Legionnaires once ruled, but that will only bring rack and ruin upon us all."

"Still…"

"Just how do you sharpen this blade?" another voice spoke from near the fire. Both Arthur and Sir Erec turned to find Merlin was now sitting by the flames, holding Caliburn. "It's just not possible for it to remain so sharp after all these battles. The oxidation potential is important because it is one indicator of how tightly bound to the ore the metal and this seems to exceed…"

"Merlin, surely you are not going to give me a lecture again about the making of steel?" Arthur laughed as he looked down at the goat in the black feathered cloak. "Not on the night before such a grand battle?"

"They don't appear to be such a grand battle looking foe to me?" Merlin mused as he glanced toward the river's mouth and the pitiful looking enemy's camp. "Do they look so grand to you Sir Eric?"

"Well they…" the knight began to respond before Merlin cut him off as he continued to talk.

"No, I don't think so Wart. You're army outnumbers them at least five to one. Now granted that they are hulking bison and that there are three what appear to be cave bears in their ranks, but they have no armor and only stone and bronze weapons."

"Please don't call me Wart!"

"It seems to me that your archers could dispatch most of their ranks with ease from a far distance."

"What honor is there in such a battle?" Sir Erec asked.

"What honor is there in being dead?" Merlin sarcastically answered.

"Merlin, you didn't come here to give me military advice," Arthur added as he took the sword from the goat's hoofs. "Sir Ector taught me battlefield tactics."

"He always said to flank the enemy, but your enemy is stuck at the river's mouth."

"Granted, but we can cut them off…"

"Wart...Arthur…why don't you just talk to them?"

"Merlin, they speak no language we know. Last time they just charged our shield wall."

"This time they have foxes!"

"Foxes? I don't understand?"

"Foxes, Wart! There are foxes with them in their camp this time. Just a few, but enough for your foxes to talk to them and find out what is going on. Speaking of which, just where are the scouts from the House of Llwynog?"

"They did not respond to our call to arms."

"King Maelgwn needs to end this feud now. Is his seneschal with him and his wolves?"

"He is, why?"

"His seneschal is a fox and despite everything, I think all foxes at one time spoke a core language which survived their migration across the world. If he speaks the old tongue and they speak anything similar, we can have at least a rudimentary conversation and then after you exchange pleasantries, you can proceed with killing one another."

"There is no glory in talking!" Sir Erec sighed.

"There is not much glory in dying," Merlin replied with a shrug.

"Then come the morrow we will see if they will talk," Arthur also sighed.

"Oh don't be so disappointed Wart, this wasn't one of your famous battles!" the goat laughed as he stood up and walked away from the two warriors

"Wait! One of my what?" Arthur called out to the goat. "What did you mean by that?" But the magician had disappeared into the camp and out of the bear's sight.

"Sometimes he can be so…vexing!" Sir Erec grumbled as he took a seat by the fire.

"You don't know the half of it my friend," Arthur chuckled as he too sat down and called for a couple tankards of mead.

"So we get the foxes to talk in the morning?"

"That was what Merlin suggested and he seems to be right about those things he remembers."

"Remembers?"

"He once told me that he was born backwards in time or some nonsense."

"Backwards in time?"

"Don't ask me what that means."

"I won't…Wart," the ram laughed.

"Don't call me Wart!" Arthur sighed again as he accepted a tankard of mead from his retainer. "That was my Uncle Ector's nickname for me when I was a cub."

Morning came early and Arthur explained to King Maelgwn what Merlin had purposed. The wolf king was more readily to agree with the idea than his seneschal was, a thin red fox named Cedrick. "I don't know my lord, I am no warrior!" he objected.

"You just need to try to talk with the other foxes," the chain mail clad wolf said as he put a paw on his smaller retainer's shoulder. "Just talk, that is something you foxes are good at doing."

The fox looked across at the invaders encampment and at the two foxes by the fire. "But they are gray in color and much smaller," he objected. "I'm a red fox and I can't even talk to the white foxes."

"At least try," Arthur called out.

After a few minutes, the fox came out of the wolf king's tent arrayed for battle, however the hauberk was much too large and the chain mail dragged onto the ground. "I can't hold such a large shield," he grumbled as he tried to lift up the large wolf sized wooden shield.

"Sir Erec and King Maelgwn will be with us on the field," Arthur replied as he took the shield from the fox's paws. "We will protect you if this doesn't work."

"But my lord, what will I say?"

"I'll tell you what to say, just repeat what I say."

They walked out onto the beach between the two armies. "Well those shaggy brown ones are really huge," Sir Erec observed as he gripped his war ax tighter.

With curiosity, the two gray foxes stood by the three large bears and watched the approaching warriors. The strange foxes were naked, except for brown colored loin cloths which covered their privates. "Talk to them!" Arthur hissed down to the red fox.

"Try howling," King Maelgwn suggested.

"Foxes don't howl my lord," Cedrick replied. He then waved and called out in a yowl, which caused the two gray foxes to look at each other in surprise. One of them called back with a mixture of yowls, barks, and strange sounding yips.

"What does the fox say?" King Maelgwn asked the red fox that stood beside him.

"I think they wanted to know where they are my lord?" Cedrick replied. "They seem to be lost. At least that is what I think he said?"

"Ask them what they want?" a familiar voice asked and Arthur glanced back to see that Merlin was now standing behind them.

The foxes exchanged more barking and yipping much to the amusement of both of the armies. "I believe they want food."

"Well it is a long way across the sea, if that is where they came from," Merlin sighed. "You know I don't remember anything like this happening?"

"Stop the riddles Merlin."

"Yeah, but I think we have a problem. That big bear with the big wooden club wants to challenge you to a fight."

"How do you know that?"

"Well he just pointed at you and lifted his lion cloth, so we can assume that either he wants to fight or romance you."

Arthur grunted and shook his head as he watched as the much bigger bear begin to stride towards him while swinging his huge club. With a roar, the beast charged.

"He's only about a few feet taller than you and several hundred pounds heavier," Sir Erec calmy said as he gave Arthur a grin. "I think you can take him Wart or do you want me to fight him."

Arthur tossed aside his shield and adjusted his coat of chain mail as he stepped forward. "So I get to fight a giant," he called back to his companions in a sarcastic tone. "Lucky me!"

King Maelgwn watched the bear for a moment and then glanced towards the ram. "Why did you call Arthur by the name of Wart?"

"An old nickname given to him by Sir Ector when he was a cub, he really doesn't like it."

Arthur stood still as the larger bear charged at him with an impressive growl. He had Caliburn in his paw, but had yet to raise the sword. Calmly he awaited his attacker and just before the bear was upon him, he brought the sword up to block the club. Despite it appearing to be solid oak, the sharp sword sliced into it with ease. The problem was that it only cut halfway into the wood and became stuck. When the larger bear pulled the club back, it yanked Caiburn from Arthur's paw.

"That doesn't look good," King Maelgwn growled as the watched the big bear toss the club aside and swing with his claws at Arthur. The smaller brown bear ducked and came up against his assailant with a punch to the other bear's jaw. The cave bear staggered backwards in surprise and then charged back at Arthur, seizing him in a crushing grip.

"That must be what they mean by a bear hug?" Sir Erec grunted. "Butt him with your head Arthur!"

"You know he doesn't have horns like you do?" Merlin added. "Kick him in the groin!"

Arthur nodded and brought his knee up under the larger bear's loin cloth and the bear released him as he staggered back. The smaller bear followed up with another staggering blow to the larger bear's jaw.

"Enough…ah, Wart!" King Maelgwn called out. "Finish him off, I'm bored!"

"Don't call me Wart!" Arthur snarled as he hit the other bear with a quick series of blows to his head, there was a snapping sound when his last blow broke the larger bear's jaw. Arthur remembered the lessons which Merlin had given him when he was a cub about fighting in a style the goat called boxing. However, he never did figure out who the queen was who made up all those dumb rules. He thought her name was Queen Berry, but nobody had heard of her.

"I do think you hurt him!" Sir Erec happily cried out while he swung his hoofs as if he was doing the fighting. "Finish him off with the old one-two punch!"

But before Arthur could swing again, the large bear fell backwards onto the sand and sat looking up at him while holding his jaw. When Arthur stepped forward, the bear raised his paw as if he wanted to stop.

"Is it over already?" Sir Erec sighed. "That wasn't such a grand fight, was it?"

The troops behind them cheered Arthur, who at first stood over his vanquished foe. Finally he walked over and yanked Caiburn from the club and slid it into its sheath. The two other cave bears dropped their weapons and ran to help their comrade, while the two gray foxes ran towards Arthur and fell to their knees. The large bison also set their weapons on the ground and watched.

"Well it seems to be over," King Maelgwn replied. "Now what do we do?"

"We get them some food!" Arthur commanded. "Then we send them away and tell them not to come back to our shores, except in friendly trade. Now Cedrick, can you please tell these two to stand up! I'm not a king."

Bards being bards, over the years they dramatically dramatized the duel between the bears for poetic purposes. In their songs, the "giant" became a great shaggy beast standing forty feet in height and was swinging an uprooted tree for a club.

* * *

**Did Arthur pull Excalibur from a stone as in the animated movie **_**The Sword in the Stone**_**? Later stories have him receiving the sword from the Lady of the Lake instead. Those of us who are Monty Python fans remember Dennis admonishing Arthur: "**_**Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"**_

**Tamahagane**** is a traditional Japanese type of steel making. **

**Næġling was Beowulf's second sword and it snapped in two during his battle with the ****wyrm or serpent. The saga says it was because the warrior was too strong in his blows. ****Angau Coch is the Welsh name for the sword also called ****Crocea Mors**** and t****he British prince Nennius acquired it during single combat with Caesar. It got stuck in his shield and it was buried with the prince after he died. **

**Yeah, I had to toss "what does the fox say?" into the story…sorry!**

**Queen Berry is of course, the Marquess of Queensberry rules for boxing. **

**Arthur supposedly fought a real giant! Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about the king's battle with the Giant of Mont-Saint-Michel. There is also a Welsh tale where Arthur fought a giant called**** Rhitta Gawr, after ****"slaying the red-eyed giant of Cernyw".**


	5. Waah-i-ald

**Chapter 5: Waah-i-ald**

* * *

**_"Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown._**

**_Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You."_**

From the Prayer of Saint Brendan (484-577 A.D.)

**Nick and Judy follow the vixen back to camp where things start to get strange…again! Nicolaus ****makes a decision which will impact both his and Maria's future together. **

* * *

**489**

"What did you mean by one of them?" Judy began to ask the vixen, she wondered if the strange fox knew about time travelers. " Do you..."

"I am not a prey chaser!" Nick suddenly cut her off with a growl as he glared at the vixen. "We are just friends."

Judy at first felt betrayed by Nick seemingly denying their love, that is until the vixen continued. "Such tis good, such perverted ways are immoral and an affront to the very gods themselves. Verily, such has been heard of before, but tis against the law and death to _mingle_ such." The vixen stressed the word mingle in such a suggestive manner that it made Judy blush. Unknown to their new self-righteous companion, her own brother Bedivere and his lover Arawen had died for consummating such a relationship.

At this stage, Nick was ready to go anywhere and do anything but help pull the wing feathers off the dead eagle, but Judy convinced him that it made sense for them to stay with the vixen as she worked and then follow her back to wherever she came from. He was shocked when after they picked the prime feathers off, she flipped the large bird over and began to pluck the breast feathers off and then with her knife, she plunged it into the bird's chest and carved out both breasts. "It may taste like shite," she said to him as she did her bloody work. "But meat tis meat and we shan't waste it."

"Oh goody fried eagle for dinner," Nick sarcastically answered.

"Only a fool wastes food!" the vixen admonished him.

"I still haven't caught your name," Judy interjected. "Mine is Judy and this is Nick."

"Fie, I have not told ye mine yet for a good reason," the vixen sighed as she stood up. "Names have magic and how do I knoweth thou are not magical beasties trying to conjure me?"

"Magical beasties trying to do what?" Nick snickered. "There are no magical beasts. Do you really think that I'm something like a unicorn in disguise?"

"Nay, a unicorn would surely have better manners then thou hast."

"Oh and you are an expert on unicorns now? When was the last time you saw one?"

"They sayeth that only the pure of heart and body may see one, so I be sure thou hast not!"

"Hey, how do you not know that I am pure of heart and body?"

"Thou hast not lain with yon bunny?"

"What I and yon bunny have…"

"Hey wait!" Judy interjected as she tapped her foot on the grass in agitation. "Vixen or no vixen, what Nick and I have done is none of your business. For your information, we are partners and not…"

"Aye partners!" the vixen giggled. "Is that what they calleth it in this land? Fie, enough of thy prattling! Tis well past time that we doth return to the camp, we have a priest which will place thee in thy place if thou art evil!"

Nick looked at Judy before he put his paw on her shoulder. "Come on Carrots, I think we had better follow her."

"Don't forget my feathers!" the vixen called back over her shoulder as she gave them a smile. She had put her hennin back on her head again as she shouldered her spear with the two bloody breasts stabbed onto the blade's end. Nick quickly gathered up the feathers in the vixen's discarded cloak and shouldered the bundle as he and Judy followed her into the woods. The vixen before him made quite a sight with her silvery chain mail and long spear, her reddish orange tail wagging with happiness, and that big silly looking pointed hat with its sheer silk veil flapping behind her.

As they walked through the darkening woods, they heard nearby howling. "Wolves methinks!" the maiden called back to her companions. "We must haste to the camp!"

"I don't think those howls were wolves!" Judy called back as they ran after the vixen. Soon they could smell smoke and hear the sound of voices over the next hilltop, but as they began to ascend the ridge someone stepped before them. He was at least a foot taller than Nick and was scantly dressed in only a loin cloth, his lean muscular tawny and gray furred body showed the physique of someone who had lived his whole life outdoors. His fur that ran from under his muzzle down towards the loin cloth was a light gray and his eyes were brown.

"Tis a wolf!" the vixen exclaimed as she brought her spear down at readiness.

"Tis a coyote!" Nick replied. "I mean, he is a coyote!" Several other coyotes had stepped from behind the trees and now faced the outnumbered foxes and bunny.

The coyote just cocked his head and wondered why the strange looking red fox vixen was pointing a spear with two large bird breasts skewered on its tip at him. He handed his own spear to one of his companions and stepped closer the vixen. Reaching out with his paw, he tugged off one of the pieces of bloody meat and sniffed it, then with a look of disgust poked it back onto the spear tip.

"I think he agrees with you that eagle tastes like ah…shite," Nick sarcastically called over to the vixen.

"Fie we are about to die and thy tongue is…" she snarled back.

There were voices from over the ridge and a somewhat older bear in a blue tunic ambled over the top and with crossed arms looked down at them. "Well there you are Aideen!" the bear snapped in agitation at the vixen. "You should know better than run off by yourself into these woods."

"I am truly sorry Sir Cai," the vixen replied as she warily watched the coyotes as they looked first at her and then the bear. "But I saw yon eagle and resolved to claim its feathers."

"Never mind, but you come with strangers!" the bear sighed as he looked at Nick and Judy. "Perhaps you might talk with these brutes and explain that we come in peace."

"I don't think so, we only speak the common language," Judy answered. "We are not from around here."

"Ah…fellow travelers!" the bear laughed.

"Yeah, we are kind of lost in more ways than just geographically," Nick sarcastically replied as he set his bundle down.

"Then come to the fire, we have mead!"

"You would have any cola or something less meadish or is that meady?"

"I've never heard of cola, but we do have some good wine."

"Wine it is, come on Carrots let's find out where we are…make that when we are!"

As they topped the ridge, Nick and Judy could see a camp or sorts below them. Lean-tos had been erected in a small clearing where two very large trees had apparently been chopped down. Lying slightly askew on its keel was a long wooden boat which was showing damage. The boat had a wide brim and it was open to the elements except where there was a somewhat taller structure, which looked in some ways like a small house in the aft where two broad keel oar planks were raised.

"So that is how you got here?" Nick asked, but the bear didn't answer and instead gave an amused look at the vixen standing next to him when she gave a gasp.

A thin red fox in a modest tunic stood up when he saw the vixen and called out, "Fie sister, avert thy maidenly eyes for our visitor hath no regards for his modesty."

"Or lack of…" Judy muttered as she also stared wide eyed at another very handsome red fox standing by the fire. His fur was long, but not long enough to cover his "modesty" as he stood there naked.

"Carrots!" Nick exclaimed as he looked down at the rabbit doe. Judy stood there with her muzzle open in shock and so did the vixen next to her. "Come on guys, haven't either of you ever seen a naked fox before?"

"Not in real life," Judy stuttered. "I've only imagined in my dreams…" She then realized what she had just said and her ears blushed before she pulled them down over her eyes.

"Nay, not one so…so…foxy!" Aideen added with a slight pant. Then she raised her right eyebrow slightly when she realized what the rabbit had just admitted.

"Great, we are stuck in a place where there is a nudist camp!" Nick groaned as he sat the cloak full of feathers down. "Kind of like a woodsy version of the Mystic Springs Oasis."

The tod in the tunic said something in yips and barks to the other fox, who grinned as he looked back up at the vixen and doe before he accepted the cloak that he was offered and quickly wrapped it around his waist as if it was a skirt. "Me thinks he now understands that his lack of modesty doth offends thy virtue sister!" the smaller fox called up to them.

Sir Cai let out a deep laugh, causing others in the camp to join him. The coyotes just looked amused, as they silently watched everyone.

Nick looked around at the motley assortment of mammals in the camp. Two large burly bulls, larger than Chief Bogo, stood by the ship dressed chain mail as if they were going to war. A tall thin red deer in a black robe, who looked the least amused about what was going, stood by the fire. Two dozen seals worked on the ship's rigging and a several grey furred wolves were stripped down to their underclothes as they labored with hand lathes to prepare the fallen trees for lumber.

"Alas we are ship wrecked!" the bear said as he ambled down the hillside towards the camp. "Come...come, let me introduce you to my companions!" The bear then stopped and looked back at them. "But, I do not know your names?"

"I'm Judy Hopps and he is Nick Wilde," Judy answered.

At the sound of Nick's last name, the native fox quickly looked back up at him in what only could be described as awe. "Waah-i-ald!" he yipped out. The coyotes around them also called out that name.

"Ah Judy, what's going on?" Nick asked with concern as he grabbed her paw. "Why are all the half-naked canids looking at me like that?"

"Waah-i-ald" they repeated as they rushed to gather around him.

"Yeah, this is definitely weird!" Nick muttered as he squeezed Judy's paw.

* * *

**Present Day**

The road down to the village from his fiancée's farm was windy and gravel covered, few in the village owned a car. Nicolaus walked in a leisurely pace towards the center of the village, taking time to talk to his neighbors, before he reached his destination in the center of the square. The tall spire of Saint Scrībō loomed over the white washed houses and commercial building. As he entered into the church, the fox removed his cap and bowed towards the alter. The table was covered with white lace and there was a simple stone statue of a lamb and a lion lying down next to each other.

"Ah, there you are my friend," a small mouse in a black robe called out as he walked down the aisle. "Maria called me and said that your dreams have become worse."

"They are changing Father. I still have the nightmare of the drowning, the fire and the strange hare."

"How are they changing Nicolaus? Come sit down and let us talk."

Nick took a seat in a pew and helped lift the mouse up and sat him upon a pillow next to him. He looked up at the stained glass window showing Saint Scrībō holding a quill and a bottle of ink. The old goat like chamois in a black robe gazed down at him as if judging his sins before writing them down. For some reason the window always made the fox feel uncomfortable, as if he was hiding something he had done in the past from the saint.

"Nicolaus, are you alright?"

The priest's voice startled him and he gave out a sigh. "I'll live father, but I am concerned that I have done things that I do not remember which hurt others."

"All those times we have spoken here in this church, you have never asked me about Saint Scrībō."

"Because Father, I know that he writes down our sins for judgment when we die and I fear I have many that I have forgotten and therefore I can never atone for them in this life."

"Nicolaus…Nicolaus…there is more to the story of Saint Scrībō than that my son. When the good saint came to these lands, he went into the mountains to the hall of the King of the Mountains. The king had once shown no remorse for all the evil he had done to the land when he was a youth and now feared that he was damned and could no longer atone for his sins. Scrībō sat at the foot of his throne and told the king to tell him all the sins that he had committed and he would write them down. The bitter aged king did so and it was truly a long and wicked list. When they were finished, the good saint looked up at the king and read them back, line by line and after each he asked if the king was sorry for what he did. When the king replied that he truly was, the great saint crossed off each one with his quill. Then after they all were crossed off, he rolled up the parchment and prayed over it without rest for three long days and nights. Behold on the morning of the third day, when the parchment was unrolled it was blank! The saint looked up at the king and told him that his sins had been forgiven and that for this day forth, he had his own life's story to write with his good deeds."

"It sound like a con job to me," Nicolaus chuckled. "He switched the parchment paper when no one was looking."

"Did it matter? The king believed him and from that day on, he was a true and righteous ruler and beloved by his subjects."

"So what are you telling me?"

"You need to go to that place in your dreams and find out about your past, only then you can seek peace and return to us whole."

"Maria is not going to like it that I am going to leave."

"Maria is going with you!" a feminine voice called out from the back of the church. "You are not going to leave me behind."

Nick turned to see that his fiancée was standing in the doorway. "Did I ever tell you about Saint Catspaw?" the priest spoke up. "Bandits tried to sack her church and she stood in the doorway blocking them from entering. She could not be moved no matter how hard they push and shoved, it was as if she was rooted to the doorway. They killed her, but the gods changed her into a tall oak which still blocked their entry."

"How is that story supposed to help me with Maria?"

"The moral of that story is not to argue with a stubborn female, saint or not, because you will lose."

"Point taken Father, Maria is very stubborn!" Nicolaus laughed as the vixen sat down next to him and took his paw. "Besides this might be our last chance to travel before we have kits."

"Travel is good. Let me tell you about the blessed Saint…" The priest began and both foxes just groaned, before they joined the mouse in laughter.

* * *

**A hennin would not be a type of hat worn by a woman during post-Roman Briton, the tall pointed hat was more of a much later Middle Ages headgear. But, to me it exemplifies a fair maiden in peril awaiting her rescue by a armored clad knight and would look really funny on a vixen. **

**I have no idea what eagle meat would taste like and it is against the law to kill one. Based on stories about sailors eating seagulls, I would imagine it would truly taste like "shite". **

**My images of the scant clothing worn by the coyotes and native red foxes would be appropriate for summer based on early Spanish reports of how the indigenous peoples or Native Americans were dressed when they were first encountered along the eastern coast of North America. Let's just hope our travelers don't carry any diseases which could wipe out the locals. **

**As for the belief that Columbus first found eastern shores of the so called New World, we know that the Norsemen settled Vineland five centuries prior to the Italian's later arrival in the Caribbean. There is also an Irish legend that Saint Brendan made the voyage sometime in the mid 500's (He** **supposedly died**** in 577).**

**The other saints are made up. **


	6. The Past Returns

**Chapter 6: The Past Returns**

* * *

"_**And do you know another thing, Arthur? Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds."**_  
Merlin in T.H. White's novel _The Once and Future King_

**In the past, the ill blood between the hares and foxes comes to a crisis. While in the present, ****Nicolaus realizes the new dreams are not his and he cannot stop Nick's memories as they begin to flood his mind.**

**Today is May Day or ********Beltane, **the beginning of summer in the old Celtic countries and I hope you celebrated with your bonfires last night and early this morning. ********We left plenty of milk and oatcakes at the doorstep to ********appease the **aos sí too! (I'm sure it was Jake and our other resident raccoon raiders, not the wee folk, who enjoyed that snack.)  
**

* * *

**489**

The rain had fallen most of the previous day and young Prince Gareth found that the mists had risen on the path that led through the woods and back to the stout walls of the warren. He wrapped his tartan cloak tighter around his shoulders as he gave his lover one last kiss before he stepped out into the predawn darkness. He knew that his father, King Cyflym, would admonish him of his dallies with a common villager, but she was worth his father's anger. He clutched his spear as if it was a staff and with his ears erect, he listened for danger as he began his journey.

Not far from the isolated hut, which he and his lover had turned into a cozy hideout at the foot of the old abandoned ringfort once called Caerbannog, he could smell the smoke of the nearby charcoal pit and knew that some unlucky young rabbit kit would have been up all night making sure that the fire in the pit of wood smoldered. Piles of wood were buried within a great dirt mound and he or she had spent the long cold lonely night stuffing damp moss into any openings to make sure the wood underground did not flare up. Charcoal was an essential part of the kingdom, because it was needed by the blacksmiths to stoke the intense flames necessary to make the iron for not only weapons of war, but also tools of peace, such as plow blades and barrel straps. His ears flicked when he hear the clanking sound coming from the stand of oak trees, charms hung to protect the ignorant from the Aos Si or Tylwyth Teg. "The fairy folk," he sighed to himself. "There is more to fear from life then that we cannot see."

He had been on the warren's tall ramparts the day that An Sionnach and his raiders had breached their defenses, the hares and rabbits did their best to defend themselves from the red fox's army of predators, but the slaughter was great. All within the fortress were doomed and the fighting in the tunnels below was desperate. It was in the light of the full moon that he saw that the fox knight named Sir Bedivere had arrived with Arthur's scouts and despite being outnumbered, the foxes and weasels charged in for the rescue. Blade met blade and the red blood flowed that night. The horns of the vanguard of Arthur's army were heard in the distance and all prayed that they would not be too late.

Smoke then obscured the moonlight and by the reddish flickering flames of the burning buildings, the young prince had witnessed the great duel between the Red Fox of the North and Sir Bedivere. Both warriors strove mighty blows at each other, weaving and ducking as only foxes could do. They thrust their iron tipped spears and blocked their opponent's strikes with their stout round wooden shields. Finally the good knight's spear shattered and he drew his knife as he leaped upon the other fox. Sir Bedivere did not have just any knife, he wore Arthur's own great knife Carwenna and the large war bear's blade in the fox's paw was like a sword. With a mighty yowl of anger, the knight drove the blade through An Sionnach's battered shield and into knave's heart. Thus the dreaded Red Fox of the North perished and with his demise, so died the moral of his army of rogues. They fled into the darkness, relentlessly pursued by Sir Gawain and the rest of Arthur's army.

Afterwards the kingdom sought to recover and as the walls of the warren were repaired, Sir Bedivere stayed to assist with the rebuilding. That was a pleasant time while days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. It was during this time when Cara first caught his eye, she was a beauty and he set out to seduce her. Cara's father, Sloan, had earned his new nickname as the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog because he fought not like the farmer he was, but like a warrior when he welded his wood ax as if it was battle born. The problem was that her family, the de Hopps, were only common freeholder rabbits who had arrived generations ago from the mainland with the Legions and so he and Cara had no real future together since he could not marry someone not of noble blood. This morning he had mixed feeling about that, because Cara had told him last night that she was pregnant.

"Damn that fox!" he softly snapped at the darkness. "Damn you Gaheris, why did you let Bedivere and Arawen fall in love?" His littermate Gaheris was older and was supposed to have ascended the throne when their father dies, the problem was that Gaheris had denounced his heritage and fled into the Great Oak Woods to become a hermit. This left him as the unwanted heir to the kingship of the House of Cwningen.

No one had suspected that Arawen and Bedivere had fallen in love, sure his sister was beautiful, but a hare and a fox in love was unnatural and an affront to the gods themselves. When it was accidentally found out, the two lovers fled towards the Great Oak Woods and there they consummated their love. They didn't make it over the wall to the northern mountains, but were caught by his father's warriors and returned to the warren for trail. Both were condemned to die by the flames, burned alive at the stake for their sin.

His brother Gaheris was always the noble one and declared his right to challenge his best friend Sir Bedivere to a dual for despoiling his sister's honor. If Bedivere won, he would still be executed, but either way Arawen would live and her "reputation" would be purged. The two friends met on the warren's practice field, long knife clashed against knife and Bedivere should have won. As they battled, the fox purposely dropped both Carwenna and his shield to receive the killing stroke. With great remorse, Gaheris delivered the blow and Bedivere fell onto the field slain. It was then that Arawen ran to the dying fox's side and after kissing him, picked up Carwenna and drove the knife into her own breast. With a gasp, she fell across her true lover's body as she joined him in death's embrace. In his despair, Gaheris cried out to the sky and broke his own blade. He soon disappeared from the warren and it is rumored that he became a hermit in the woods.

At least his Cara would be safe, no matter how angry his father was. It wasn't the fact that he had spawned a litter of bastards with a commoner, the gods know that his father had done so many times, it was that they were to be his first born. But, de Hopps and his daughter would be compensated for his act and that would be that. "Cara, I wish to the gods that we could marry," he bitterly sighed.

Before him was the distant flickering light from the burning torches outside of the warren's entry. His ears twitched when he heard a soft paw step in the woods behind him and he turned as he lowered his spear in defense, but he was too late. The larger spear seemed to come out of nowhere and he grunted as its impacted into his chest. The blow knocked him backwards and he laid sprawled helpless on the ground, he felt bone chilling cold as he watched while a shadowy figure stepped out of the mist with a wicked looking knife in his paw. "You're not a fox…" were his last words before death overcame him.

As the sun arose in the eastern sky, King Cyflym was awakened by a great cry of despair and he quickly tossed on his tunic. "Come thee quickly my lord, tis your son!" a warrior cried out from the gate. The hare king seized a spear and climbed up the rampart's stairs to the watch tower. His eyes widened with horror when he saw his son Gareth's severed head stuck atop a fox made spear in the middle of the trail. He cried out curses towards the heavens and then swore both to the gods and his ancestors, that he would have his revenge upon the House of Llwynog!

* * *

**Present Day **

"You called out the name Judy last night in your dreams," Maria mildly challenged Nicolaus as he sat at the kitchen table. She had sat down a plate of boiled eggs and flatbread with herbs for their dinner. "Do you remember who this Judy might be? There is no vixen by that name in the village."

"No", Nicolaus sighed out as he looked up at her, she was jealous of whoever this memory could have been or was. "I just remember that she was smaller than me and I was teasing her while holding a pen under a bridge? I know that makes no sense, but she was standing on my tail and was sniffling as if she was upset with herself." He grew quiet again as he stood up and looked out the window at the field of soft green rye grass weaving in the breeze.

Maria knew not to press him anymore, she knew from his whimpers and whines that the dream had changed and returned back to that same damn nightmare of drowning, fire, and a strange hare in a black suit. She watched him as he stood there and closed his eyes. "Maria, why do you love me?" he finally asked. "It's not fair that I burden you with all my…issues. You really don't know, I don't know, who I am or was before your family found me in the hills."

The vixen stood up and walked over to the tod, where she gently wrapped her arms around him and placed her head against his chest. "Because you are sweet, funny, and very sexy," she answered in a tone which was soothing, almost as if she was purring like a feline. "These dreams and that nightmare have only come about recently. We will work through them once we get to Zootopia. As for whom you are? You are my Nicolaus and I love you."

"I'm not sure why I am having these dreams," he softly muttered as he rested his muzzle on her forehead. "I just seem to know that…well, for some reason…I just think…"

He had grown silent again and she hugged him harder. "Tell me what you are thinking Nicolaus," she sighed.

"I just don't think that the dreams are mine!' he whined in frustration. "The nightmare is, but the dreams are more like someone else's memories." Something on the counter caught his attention and he untangled himself from their embrace as he walked over to look at the bunch of orange carrots and then the amethyst charm hanging in the window. "Carrots!" he exclaimed. "Carrots! She was calling herself a dumb bunny…her name is Judy and her family grows carrots!" He looked back up at the charm and thought about the amethyst eyes looking into his. Then it was if something had bust inside his psyche, he groaned as he grabbed his forehead with both of his paws and cried out from the pain.

Maria ran to his side and steadied him before he could collapse. "Come sit down and I'll summon the doctor!" she called out as she fumbled for her cell phone.

* * *

**The name Sloan is an old Scottish name derived from ****"Sluaghadhan", leader of a military expedition or raid. Sloan de Hopps and his family are European rabbits and therefore, were not indigenous to the island. **

** The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog sound familiar to anyone? **

**Later Arthurian stories would have Arthur's wife Guinevere fall in love with his best friend Lancelot and she would be accused of adultery. Lancelot would challenge her accuser Meleagant to battle to protect Guinevere's honor. Their affair would later shatter the Fellowship of the Roundtable and be the cause of the great king's downfall. **


	7. Tis Not Their Way

**Chapter 7: Tis Not Their Way **

* * *

"_**There are no boundaries among the geese. **__**How can you have boundaries if you fly?"**_  
Merlin to Young Arthur in T.H. White's novel _The Sword in the Stone_

**Back to our favorite fox and a bunny in a not so far away land, but it a time very long ago. Aideen has a misunderstanding with the strange wild fox while taking a bath in the river.  
**

* * *

**489**

It was in the predawn hours, just as the false dawn was beginning to break into the day's true dawn, when Aideen slipped away from the camp and after stripping her clothes off, she waded into the nearby river. The water was cold, but she was determined that she was going to wash and groom herself. The words of that strange fox named Nick had made her aware that she had spent too much time among the males of their expedition and that she may have become a tad pungent in her musk. "I bathe with soap and water, you should try doing that once and a while!" he had snapped at her when she teased him about his lack of sent. Although she did not show it, his words about her smelling had hurt her feelings and so she decided it was time to show him more of her feminine side.

Reaching for the bar of soap, she sniffed it and it smelled like the heather on the hillside at home. "Bath with soap and water," she softly scoffed as she began to lather her fur. "At least I don't smell like I've been rubbing against a bunny!"

There was a splash behind her and she quickly turned to realize that she was not alone. The wild fox who was with those who were not quite wolves, the one Nick had called the "ki-o-ties" or something like that, was now swimming upstream. He stood up and waved at her, careless that he was undressed again and seeming oblivious to that fact. She felt herself blushing as she quickly turned away and her ears flicked in panic as she heard him splashing towards her. Glancing towards the riverbank, she cursed herself for being too far from her blanket, clothing, and most importantly, her knife.

"He shan't despoil me without a fight!" she softly snarled to herself as she struggled towards the shoreline. It was then that she realized he had stopped splashing and looked over to see that the handsome tod was now sitting upstream in the water, just watching her.

She blushed again as she immersed herself under the cold current, hoping that it would hide her from his sight.

"Why do you hide?" he barked and yipped out in the old tongue. "Are you ashamed of your body?"

"Ashamed?" she turned and glared at him. His fur was a much darker red then either her or her brothers, theirs was more of a paler orange in its color tone. Her tail and ears were darker brown at their tips, but his was the same creamy white which ran from his muzzle down towards his… she blushed one again. He sat there with his head cocked as he gave her a look of confusion and it was then she realized that he did not understand her. "It is…not our way…to…show ourselves to others who are males," she slowly yipped and growled back in the old language.

"You are such a strange vixen," he called back as he stood up and crept along the riverbank towards something floating in the water. She was relived because he now was attempting to somewhat keep himself submerged. "Why do you collect eagle feathers?"

"For my war cloak." She realized that the object he had retrieved was her bar of soap and he held it to his nose as he sniffed it.

"Why do you need a war cloak?" he asked with a smile as he waded towards her with the soap outstretched in his paw. When he saw her flinch and back up, he stopped added. "I mean you no harm."

"Then close your eyes, it is not right for you to see me this way."

"Your body is not at all unattractive, so why do you hide it?"

"I told you, it is just not our way."

He had tightly closed his eyes, but was still smiling as he approached her. "Here," he called out as he tossed the soap towards her.

Back in the now stirring camp, Nick yawned as he sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his paws. It had been a late night while his odd assortment of companions ate, talked and drank. Dinner for the predators was a pot of what appeared to be a fish head soup, which Nick could barely stand the taste of and could not stomach to eat. Still, it was a vast improvement over the broth made from the gamey eagle breasts, which stunk worse than the soup. He managed to get Judy to share her greens and they turned out to be rather tasty, despite not having any dressing.

The thin male fox, who he learned was Aideen's brother Tristan, had pulled out a small harp and began to sing a number of long songs much to the enjoyment of the bear named Sir Cai and the two bulls named Bors and his brother Lionel. One of the melodic chanting songs was about the exploits of several warriors during a recent battle. Nick's mouth dropped open and Judy's ears shot up when they heard the name Arthur.

"With his great sword Caliburn, valiant Arthur slew a hundred of the foe," Tristan sang. "With his spear, he slew another…"

"Ha!" Sir Bors laughed out heartily, interrupting the song. "Arthur did not slay that many of the ax boars. He was right next to me and I saw that he may have killed two or three of them before their shield wall shattered. "Sir Gawain killed twice that many and more!"

"Tis a bard's poetic license," Sir Tristan laughed back. "Fie, I have not even reached thy own great exploits."

"You foxes are renowned for being the best at exaggeration," the priest added with a thin smile.

"We foxes art truly the best at everything!" Tristan gaily boasted back and then in barks and yips, he spoke to the wild fox sitting next to him. The fox just grinned, showing his white fangs.

"Did you say Arthur?" Judy interrupted. "As in the King Arthur?"

"Arthur is no king," Sir Cai answered after he took a gulp of his mead from the large bowl he held in his paw, he had a troubled look. "The gods know he should be, but he leads our war band instead. I would have proclaimed him king if it had not been for the others, Uther left no other heir and then there is my nephew Mordred who wants the throne for himself."

"Back to the song Tristan!" Sir Bors called out. "Let us hear this song of glory!"

"I will tell you the truth about that battle!" Sir Cai snapped out in moody agitation. "The boars formed a stout shield line, with their spears and long axes bristling along the front and we knew that despite our larger sizes that it would be a sorely contested battle. Arthur had positioned the bulls in the center, the bears on the right, and King Maelgwn's wolves formed our left flank. Once we organized ourselves into our battle lines, the swift bucks were unleashed to trot forward and shower the raiders with a rain of arrows."

The bear paused to drink his mead and after a hardy belch, he wiped his muzzle with the back of his shaggy paw. "The archers caused the boars to tighten their ranks and that is when the rabbits unleashed their huge iron barbed darts from their half a dozen ballista. I saw a poor soul try to block one with his shied, it splintered it as drove deeply into his body and then out of his back and into the boar behind him. Now, the ballista and the archers drew everyone's attention, leaving the next part of Arthur's plan to go unnoticed by the enemy. The foxes, led by Sir Bedivere, had swum from upriver and with fiery torches began burning the foe's longships."

With a sigh, he picked up his sword and looked at it by the fire's glow before he continued, "Panicked, the boars began to break ranks and that's when Arthur led us across the field. Shield met shield and spear met ax. It was a bloody melee and I saw Arthur drive a spear into the foe before him, his shield catching another boar's ax before I split that warrior's head with my sword. I lost sight of Arthur when I found myself facing two warriors, one of whom tried to outflank me before I drove my sword into his comrade's belly. I blocked his ax with my shield, which had begun to shatter, so I tossed it into his face before I charged into him and chocked him to death with my paws. "

Sir Cai stopped and looked at the crackling fire. "There is nothing noble in war, just fear, excitement, and desperation. To kill or be killed, the determination to stay alive by taking another poor soul's life instead. In the end, we slaughtered them all," he bitterly finished. "There was no glory!"

Nick was slightly startled from his musings about the previous evening when he heard Judy yawn. "Wake up Carrots, it is another day in paradise," he joked to her as she peeked up at him from within the tartan blanket she had snugged into the night before.

"It's only paradise until you have to use the bathroom," she grumbled. "We are stuck in a time when there are no bathrooms or even toilet paper. I asked Aideen if there was any last night and she looked at me as if I was crazy and told me to relieve myself in the woods. That I could use moss or leaves to wipe myself, although she said that there was a bucket full of seawater with a sponge I could use if I wanted or I could go do in the river."

"I guess that would work?"

"Nick!"

"What? I've got to go myself."

"In the river? Really Nick!"

"A fox has got to do, what a fox has to…" he began to tease her. It was then they heard an angry yell.

Nick leaped to his feet and looked over at Judy, who had rolled out of the blanket. "The river!" she cried out as she raced past him and into the woods. He ran after her and there they saw the red deer stag in the black robe shaking his fist and they thought at first he was angrily berating the wild red fox, who looked confused as he stood there naked in the river. It only then that they realized that Aideen was further out in the cold water, submerged so only her head showed. "Whore!" the priest yelled at her. "Have you no shame?"

"Tis not what thou think!" Aideen called back in an angry tone.

Two coyotes had arrived and growled as they pointed their flint tipped spears at the priest. Behind them there was the sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth and the two bulls bust out onto the shoreline with their swords drawn and their shields ready for battle.

"STOP!" a commanding voice called out from down the beach and everyone turned to see that Sir Cai had arrived with Tristian and several heavily armed wolves. "Put your weapons down!"

Sir Tristan ran past the bear, stopping at the water's edge to first look at the wild fox and then his sister. He spoke in yips and yowls to the fox, who looked at the priest and then over towards the vixen, before he answered back and then splashed down the river towards where he had discarded his cloak.

"Verily, he tis only an innocent Father," Tristan finally said to the priest. He claims that he merely came to wash himself and that my sister twas already in the river. I explained to him that it was inappropriate, but I do nay thinketh that he truly understands why. Tis not their way to wear clothing, except in the very bitter cold of winter."

"Savages!" the priest snapped. "Heathen fox savages!"

"Fie, I am freezing my tail off!" Aideen snapped out from deep in the water. "I am coming ashore, so unless thou wishes to see me as naked as the day I was born, turn thy backs or leave!"

"Sister!" Tristan began to object.

"I have been aboard yon small boat with all of ye for too many weeks!" the vixen continued to growl. "During that time I hath seen more fur than what be truly appropriate for a maiden of the court. But I am a shield maiden, not some simpleton noble girl and I can protect my own virtue from the likes of that rogue. So a pox on ye all if thy doest not go back to camp, for I am coming out of this water now!"

The priest threw his arms into the air in disgust and the two bulls began to laugh. Sir Cai only gave a thin smile and patted Tristan on his shoulder. One of the wolves whispered something inappropriate to one of his battle companions, which Judy overhead and blushed. The coyotes had trotted down the beach to where the fox had shaken himself off and wrapped the cloak around his waist as if it was a kilt. He stood there with his arms crossed and then beckoned to Nick. "Waah-i-ald" he called out and then spoke in his peculiar yips and barks.

"He wants you to come with him!" Aideen translated as she crept closer to the shoreline. When the wild fox looked her direction, she snapped back in a growl, bark and yowl. The tod quickly turned around and looked away. "The same goes for you Nick," she added and smiled as he too looked away from her. "Judy can you get my blanket?"

Quickly she splashed her way towards the beach and shook herself off. Judy had to admit she was a beautiful vixen. He coat had a healthy shine and there was little body fat on her, her fur was much longer than that worn by any of the vixens she had seen in the city. "There!" Aideen sighed as she wrapped herself in the blanket. "Verily, I be somewhat more acceptable to thy gaze, let me haste back to yon camp and then giveth me a few minutes to get dressed before we leave."

"You may go with them once you are properly dressed," Sir Cai laughed. "But no one is going anywhere until after we break the morning's fast and are suitably armed." He chuckled as she enthusiastically rushed passed him and into the woods. By the time the remainder of them had arrived, she had changed into a padded jacket and was struggling with her coat of mail.

"She is almost past her marriage age," Sir Cai said quietly to Tristan. "At eighteen winters old, she should have a husband and at least a dozen kits."

"Tis difficult for my liege and father to find a mate for one so…energetic," Sir Tristan sighed. "Mayhaps she will be ready to settle down after this quest."

"If it ever ends!" Sir Lionel grunted as the bull stretched his large arms. "We have no idea where we are, do we? But the gods smiled upon us, we should have sunk in that storm."

"Twas a most unnatural storm at that indeed," the fox agreed as he accepted a chunk of bread from one of the seals and a bowl of watered down wine.

"Nay my lord," the seal sailor replied. "Twas only a sea storm, nothing unnatural about it. I have been in worse, but the wind carried us too far from land to see where we are."

"I will take thy word for that kind sir," Sir Tristan said as he sipped the wine. "Thank thee for the vitals."

"Rye bread!" Sir Cai grumbled as he sat down with a grunt by the rekindled campfire. "I once had some bad rye bread when I was just a young cub, both me and Arthur. It made us see things which were not there."

Nick sniffed the bread and tasted it, it was more like a thick cracker that a true loaf. He picked off a molded spot and tossed it into the fire before he continued to nibble.

"Arthur claimed he was turned into a bird and learned to fly," the bear continued. "He said Merlin did it with magic and also changed him into a fish, then finally into a squirrel."

"Why a mere squirrel?" Sir Bors asked as he chomped down on some of the bread.

"To show him what it is like to be small in a big bear's world. Arthur even claimed he caught the fancy of a female squirrel, who chased in up and around a tree."

"What happened to you?" Sir Lionel interjected as he sat down next to his brother.

"I thought I was kissing a pretty she cub that I knew," Sire Cai chuckled. "But alas, it turned out to be a tree instead." Everyone laughed as the old bear made a comical kissy face. "But, she was truly a pretty tree at that!" he roared out in laughter and then he sighed as he looked up at the sky. "So Arthur learned humility and I…alas my friends, I got splinters in my lips." Everyone laughed again.

"Merlin's magic is mightily indeed," Sir Tristan said almost in an awed whisper. The two bulls touched charms that they wore around their necks.

"No, Merlin said the bread was made with some moldy grain and it made us see things that didn't really happen. He said we were lucky and that the bread might have made us sick or worse. He had my father burn the remaining bread and the bad grain."

"So are we ready yet!" Aideen impatiently called out. She was dressed in her iron chain mail, in one paw she held a spear and the other a red and blue painted wooden shield. Upon her head was an iron helmet like the others wore to battle, but it had silver wings on each side. "Yon morning wastes away, tis time to go!"

Nick nudged Judy and whispered, "She looks like a Valkyrie from that opera you dragged me to go see!"

Judy tried not to laugh as she looked up at the vixen. She giggled as the fox began to hum, "Ta tat a tat ta…ta ta ta ta ta…ta ta ta da!"

* * *

"**Ki-o-ties" is of course Aideen's attempt to pronounce coyotes. **

**Sir Bors and Sir Lionel are also knights of Arthurian legend. Their father Sir Bors the Elder was one of Arthur's early allies. Sir Bors the Younger would be one of three knights to find the Holy Grail. **

**A drinking bowl or ****maze****r, was a common ******drinking vessel** and more likely to be encountered on a post Roman British table then a drinking horn. I doubt that the bulls would be too pleased if they drank from horns, but then again some of our ancient cultures had drinking bowls fashioned from human skulls.  
**

**Rye ergot fungus or **_**Claviceps purpurea**_**, can produce hallucinations and worse, including a condition called ergotism**** or "St. Anthony's Fire"****. **** Ergot contains a toxin which resembles LSD. **** Dr. ****Linnda Caporael**** has theorized that the fungus may have been responsible for the hysteria which led to the infamous Salem Witch Hunts of 1692. So Merlin recognized it was the "bad rye bread" which caused the boys to hallucinate and he quickly had the infected crop destroyed. **

**The image of the Valkyrie Nick mentions**** is from ****Richard Wagner****'s famous opera, **_**Der Ring des Nibelungen**_**or ****"**_**The Ring of the Nibelung**_**" and the tune he was humming is the ever popular song, the ****"**_**Ride of the Valkyries**_**".**


	8. I Have Sinned

**Chapter 8: I Have Sinned**

* * *

_**"Alas!" said Gaheris, "that is foul and shamefully done; that shame shall never depart from you. Ye should give mercy unto them that ask mercy, for a knight without mercy is without honor."**_

Chapter VI. The Ladies' Knight, Stories of King Arthur and His Knights by Uriel Waldo Cutler

**Just as Arthur seems to find peace with the strangers who came from the sea, a crises flares up between the Great Houses. In the future, a stranger appears as Nicolaus becomes sick. **

* * *

**489**

"Did they come from Hy-Brasil?" King Maelgwn muttered in an awed tone while he listened as his seneschal, a red fox named Cedrick, slowly translated the smaller gray fox's story. "They say the blessed island is west of the Green Island of Plenty. But, the legend is that you can only see it for only one day in every seven years, or was that seven days in a year?"

"There is no such place!" Merlin scoffed before he sipped on some strange hot brown liquid he called tea. "Now granted there are some islands deep in the Great Sea, but there is nothing as magical as you claim."

"How would you know?" the wolf king challenged him in a disappointed manner.

"Trust me, I know!"

"Yet they did sail here from somewhere?" Arthur quick interjected as he poked a stick into the campfire's embers. "Their boats are nothing more than rafts, not anything like we sail or even the longboats of either the boars or the white bears."

The gray fox continued to yip, bark, and growl.

"He says that his clan fled from the west, from where the sun sets, chased by…I think he said by the Eaters of the Flesh? The survivors reached the sea and they were trapped, but they met some gray and black ring-tailed sailors. The sailors helped them build their boats and promised to ferry them to an island where they would be safe, but then a terrible storm happened and they were swept far away. Those who did not drown, floated for weeks upon weeks and many perished from thirst. Just when all hope was lost, a great finned beast came up from the sea's depths."

"A great finned beast?" King Maelgwn grunted. "Twas it a sea dragon?"

"Probably a whale," Merlin suggested. "They are extremely smart and very compassionate."

"The finned one pushed their boats to an island, where they found plenty of forage, water, and birds. There were no others on the island, but they did find the bones of long dead giant rabbits." The fox continued to translate.

"Giant Rabbits?" Sir Erec asked as he stopped sharpening his war ax. "I seem to recall hearing an old story of giant rabbits and a powerful wizard living on a great island. The Legionnaires wrote stories about the island being swallowed up by the sea because of the inhabitants evil ways. I'm sure King Aldroen has that book in his chambers, but it is too bad that no one can read it anymore. What was that island's name?"

"Atlantis," Merlin sighed out. "It too does not exist, at least not where most think it is to be found."

"Then just what is out there?" King Maelgwn snapped in aggravation at the old goat in the black feathered cape. "You claim there are no magical islands and yet they came from somewhere!"

"There is only a lot of water," the goat answered. "Just a lot of water, before you finally find land."

"The Silk Kingdom?" Arthur asked.

"Not quite," Merlin cryptically answered. "But that land is for someone in the future and not you to discover." The goat stood up and walked away towards the large shaggy beasts he called bison and their crude boats.

"Vexing!" Sir Erec grumbled as he watched Merlin walk away. "As I said Arthur, he is most vexing."

"Go on Cedrick," King Maelgwn encouraged the red fox to talk to the gray fox in the old tongue.

The two foxes yipped, barked, whined and growled for a few moments, before Cedrick continued the story, "Twas a great famine milord, the rain stopped and the crops died. They feared to go back west and so they sent hunters to the east to search for food."

"Those last raiders we either killed or drove back to the sea were only seeking food and not slaves or riches?" Arthur sadly asked. "We waged war against them when all they needed was our help. Instead of offering our paw in friendship, we gave them the sharp ends of our swords. We have committed a sin in our ignorance, hospitality should be shown all strangers or so it is written."

"It seems that way," Sir Erec added. "We would have attacked them again, if you had not listened to Merlin and had the foxes talk with each other."

"Then we should…." Arthur began, but a frantic cry interrupted his words.

A red fox trotted into the camp and frantically fell on his knees before the wolf king. "My king, they hath come and taken our chief, they claimed that we foxes hath killed the son and heir of good King Cyflym. The hares came forth with warrior rams and they burned down our village, before they slew as many of thy subjects as they could catch."

"Damn it!" King Maelgwn growled as he stood up in anger. "Cedrick, tell my warriors to ready themselves to march to war!"

"Wait Maelgwn!" Arthur called out to the king. "First, this fox needs to tell us everything he knows!"

* * *

**Present Day**

Nicolaus was curled upon the bed with a cold towel covering his eyes when the village doctor arrived. The middle aged wolf was actually a very competent physician and had chosen a small rural clinic over a more lucrative big city practice. The doctor quickly went over to the fox and began to fret at what he saw. "Nicolaus, you are having a migraine headache." He said as he sat himself down at the end of the bed and looked down at the fox's medical chart on his small square electronic notebook. "You said that these new memories are coming to you when you are now awake and not just your dreams?"

The red fox in the bed nodded before he answered, "This is the first time that I have had them when awake."

"So you are having hallucinations?"

"No, I don't see things. I just remember them and then the headache."

"You said that you didn't think they were your memories, why do you believe that?"

"I don't know? I Just know for some reason they aren't! Am I going crazy doc.?"

"This doesn't seem like schizophrenia or any of the common physiological illnesses I am familiar with. Let me run some tests on your blood sample and see maybe if it is anything medical which could be causing this."

"Could it be my memories finally coming back to me?"

"That is possible, maybe you are recovering from whatever trauma you experienced which caused you to have the amnesia? Look, my uncle is a psychiatrist and has had some success with using hypnosis in cases like yours, I can bring him to the village and maybe he can unlock whatever caused your memory loss?"

I was late night by the time the good doctor arrived back at his home. His wife was already sound asleep in their bedroom and so he wearily went to his study to put his bag and Nick's samples away. It was pitch black inside the room and he reached over and fumbled for the light switch. "Don't," a familiar sounding voice spoke from within the darkened room.

"Nicolaus, is that you? How did you get here so fast?" the wolf asked as he tried to peer into the darkness.

"I'm not Nicolaus," whoever was inside replied. "But he won't find any answers here, he must go to Zootopia to be made whole again."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He is an aberration who should not exist in this time."

"I don't understand? Who are you?"

"Just another aberration…no, I am an anomaly!"

The doctor quickly reached for the light switch, but by the time he flicked on the light the room was empty. He sniffed around the room for a scent and swore it smelled like a fox had been there…no, maybe it was a rabbit? It was then that he saw that a name had been written on the note pad he kept on his desk. He peered down at the name and read it softly to himself, "Nick Wilde?"

About ten minutes later on the other side of the village, a small mouse in his black priest's robes was extinguishing the last of the candles on the church alter. He paused when he heard a soft scratching noise from within the nearby confessional. "Is there someone here?" the mouse called out as he climbed down the altar's ladder and then quickly scurried towards the booth. "This is not the normal scheduled time for confession."

"Forgive me father for I have sinned," a voice within the booth intoned. "I think that is what you are supposed to say, but this is my first confession." The priest stopped, that voice was so familiar and sounded like Nicolaus, but younger in its timbre.

"You say that you have committed a sin my son?"

"Yes father, I have offended all the gods."

"How could you have done that?"

"Simple, I exist."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I am an anomaly…a freak…a divergence…an aberration…a deviation…"

"My son, I am sure…"

"My greatest sin is that I was born."

"What do you mean by that?" the priest asked, but there was no reply from within and so he tugged back the confessional's curtain enough to look inside and saw it was empty. Then he frowned for carved with a sharp claw into the booth's richly stained wood was a name. "Nick Wilde?" the mouse read the name out loud. "Who is Nick Wilde?"

* * *

**Who is Nick Wilde indeed? Please remember that this Nick or Nicolaus has no memories prior to being found in the mountains. In my previous story, **_**Zootopia: A Paradox in Time**_**, this Nick Wilde was smuggled out of Zootopia by ****associates of ****Agent Topal Minos. He comes from a timeline which did not survive, so that truly makes him "an ****aberration who should not exist in this time" as the stranger says. **

**Hy-Brasil is a mythical island which was once believed to be southwest of Ireland. Some of the old Irish tales claimed that the island could only be seen once every seven years. ****However, we should all know that the peaceful island sank into the sea when blood was shed upon it by Vikings seeking the magical Horn Resounding so they could awaken the gods…okay that was from the movie ****_Erik_ _the_ _Viking_****_._ **

**The story of the giant rabbits and a magician on the mythical island comes from a report by Capt. John Nesbit, he claimed to have landed on such an island in 1674. However, in**** 2011, fossils of a giant rabbit were discovered on the island of Minorca just off the coast of Spain. This new find was named **_**Nuralagus**_** _rex_****_,_ "the Minorcan king of the rabbits."**

**The gray and black ring-tailed sailors would be ****crab-eating raccoons who live in the marshes of South and Central America and also on some of the Caribbean Islands. **


	9. In Darkness I Hide

**Chapter 9: In Darkness I Hide **

* * *

**_You're not listening! Your heart is not. Love is deaf as well as blind. You have a land to quell before you can start all this hair pulling and jumping about!_**

Merlin in the movie _Excalibur_

**Arthur returns to Caer Camlann where the kings have gathered to decide what to do about the murder of King Cyflym's son Gareth. He also meets with a spy who has disturbing news about the murder and also about another more personal matter. **

* * *

**489**

The sun had set by the time that Arthur, along with his pawful of warriors and their retainers, had returned to Caer Camlann . Like the arrogant self-governing city of Cair Lundem to the south, the once prosperous city before him was now a mere shadow of its former self. Built as a fortress for the mighty Legions to control the northern lands, its great stone and marble buildings had fallen in disrepair since that iron-clad army had left several generations ago. Most of the city dwellers had abandoned the grand buildings and instead lived in modest homes with thatched roofs along with clay and timber walls, much like those found in any nearby village or farmstead. The marble stone veneer, which once covered the raw bricks on the formally grand buildings, had been pried off and burnt in kilns for its lime. As the war leader, Arthur had spent a considerable amount of his own limited funds to repair the stout stone walls which still fortified much of the city. Their repairs were meager compared to the grandeur of the original walls and he had to use wood to replace any stone where needed.

Arthur had left Sir Erec and Sir Gawain behind with a contingent of his professional warriors to ensure that the gray foxes and their companions received the needed food and water before they left to return to their mysterious island in the western seas. King Maelgwn had sent the bulk of his spear wolves back to his kingdom to protect it from any further raids against the fox clan. He did take a substantial bodyguard when he swiftly left the field to go to Caer Camlann and had arrived long before Arthur and his warriors.

There was a stench in the city's air that offended the bear's nose after being in the field for so long and used to the sweet clean country air. The town smelled like smoke, decay, and dung. One had to be careful where he stepped, the stone street's gutters had become a dump for all sorts of waste, including that of the inhabitant's own personal hygiene.

Beyond the repaired gate and built upon a small hillock overlooking the town, was the great hall. It was one of the few buildings which had survived the many years of neglect, all except the original roof. The reddish clay tiles were now long gone, replaced by thick thatch, but the walls still proudly stood and they gleamed white from their coat of lime paint in the moonlight. The hall was busy tonight, all sorts of mammals rushed in and out and after leaving his warriors at the garrison's barracks, Arthur trudged his way towards the hall. He still wore his hauberk of chain mail and his trusty sword Caliburn hung from his belt, thievery was not unknown in these streets.

"An armed warrior will not be welcome in the Great Hall," a familiar voice called out to him from the darkness.

"Nor would the face of a spy," Arthur chuckled back as a thin elderly weasel in a worn green tunic stepped in front of him. "Henry, I thought that Cai ordered you to watch over Mordred?"

"I am!"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Your cousin is here tonight and he is claiming that since good Sir Cai is absent, that he has the right to sit as the new steward for the House of Arth at the table."

"That will not bode well with the clan elders or my warriors."

"There is more afoot than meets the eyes, good Arthur. But come, let us find a less public place to talk," the weasel said as he beckoned him to follow. They entered a room which was inside of one of the old buildings, the stone walls still stood firm despite that most of the roof had fallen through. There was a table and some chairs next to a blazing fire, a scantily clad white-furred young female stoat looked up as they entered and wordlessly struggled to carry a large jug of wine to the table before she disappeared into the streets.

"She doesn't look like your daughter," Arthur scoffed as the sleet white tail disappeared.

"Since my wife's death, I have had to find others to keep me warm at night. Having some wealth is a good thing for one my age, you can buy what you need and I bought her at auction."

Arthur knew exactly what the older weasel named Henry meant, the bear hated slavery but there was nothing he could do about it as a warlord. The poor stoat had probably been captured during a raid into the northern lands by the war boars and sold for a few trinkets of silver in the local market. "It's too bad that Uther died when he did, I heard that he was going to make you a duke over some godforsaken part of the kingdom."

"Tis too bad that he died before he could proclaim you as his heir," the weasel replied as he climbed into one of the chairs and gestured for the large bear to pour him a bowl of the wine. "But still a title such as the Duke of Weaselton does have a grand sound to it, do you not think so?"

"You did not bring me in here to talk of lost dreams."

"No, it has to do with the death of King Cyflym's son. I have kept an eye on all the great houses for Sir Cai, as I did for Uther and good Sir Ector."

"You have told me this before, what vexes you about Gareth's murder? Please don't tell me it really was the foxes!"

"No, but in some ways, I wish it had been a fox."

"Spill the story," Arthur grunted out before he sipped the wine. It was a cheap tasting soldier's wine and vinegary to the palette, but it cut his thirst.

"My son Darius saw King Aldroen talking to someone who looked like a fox last night. The ram king was handing the stranger a bag of gold and so my son followed the stranger back to the river port where he discovered that it was not at all a fox."

"Who and what does this have to do with Gareth's death?"

Henry jumped up on the table and walked over closer to the bear. Leaning over he urgently whispered in an almost scared tone, "He was killed by a Child of Anubis!**"**

"Wait, what would a follower of Anubis be doing here? I thought that the Legionnaires destroyed their kind in that far away land of the pyramids many generations ago!"

"No my friend, they survived in the great desert and now they hire themselves out as assassins."

"But, aren't they all jackals?" Arthur replied. "There can't be that many of them this far north?"

"There is a den of them to the south, in that hellhole they call Lundein."

"Are you telling me that King Aldroen hired a jackal to slay Gareth and is now blaming the foxes for his death, to what ends?"

"To start a war between the houses and that is what I believe, but I cannot prove it so."

"Sir Erec said Aldroen had been paying off the boars along the coast."

"Gold, silver, and slaves."

"Do you know where this jackal is hiding?"

"Yes, but that will do us no good."

"Why, I can send some warriors to seize him and surely you have ways to make him talk?"

"If you do so, I will have to stop telling everyone that the valiant Arthur does not waste his warrior's lives," weasel sighed as he sat down in his chair again. "Besides he would kill himself before you could capture him."

"Then we have nothing!" the bear growled. Then he leaned back and looked up at the night sky. "You could have sent a message to me in the field about all of this, why did you wait until I came here?"

"Because I like you Arthur and did not want you to walk into something without being prepared."

"Then I give you my thanks!" the bear said as he stood to leave.

"There is something else…" Henry urgently called out. Arthur turned to look down at the weasel.

"There is more?"

"She is here too!"

Arthur blanched slightly before he sat down. "What is she doing here?"

"She came with Mordred to shop for new linen, at least that is what I have been told. I really think she came to see you!"

Arthur looked down at Henry, who was now smiling. "Why would Guinevere come to see me?" he slowly asked, as if he feared to hear the answer.

"Merlin is right, you can be an idiot sometimes!" the weasel laughed.

* * *

**Present Day**

Nicolaus could not sleep, his head pounded and his stomach roiled. The ice pack which he had laid across his forehead gave some mind-numbing cold and therefore a little temporary relief from his migraine. Maria stirred next to him and curled herself tighter as if she was battling her own mental demons in her dreams. He was relieved that she finally was able to sleep, he worried about her and felt bad that he had burdened her so with his sudden illness. Then his ears shot up when he heard someone or something outside of the cottage and then there was the alarmed clucking of the hens. _Someone was in the hen house_! He thought to himself as he softly slipped from the bed and crept towards the front door.

In front of the hen-coop was a figure in a black hoody, he was shorter than Nicholas by several inches, but the fox could see a red tail swishing in the faint moonlight. "I wouldn't try to take one of my chickens," he growled at the strange figure.

"I don't eat chickens," the figure answered as he turned to face the fox. "I just wanted to draw you outside."

"Why?"

"Because I've got something for you, Nick!"

"Do you know me?"

"Of course," the figure answered before he jumped…no, hopped…into Nicolaus and knocked him down.

Nicolaus felt himself being pushed over and then there was a blinding pain in the back of his head. A firm reddish-orange paw clamped his muzzle closed so he made no noise. Things began to fade into darkness, but before he passed out he could swear he saw his attacker had lost his hood and two long ears were standing upright.

Marie found him on the ground when she went looking for him a few hours later, she shook him and he woke up with a yawn. Reaching back he rubbed the spot on his neck, which almost felt as if he had been stung by a bee.

"Nicholas, are you hurt?" the vixen pleaded as she helped him stand.

"Actually I feel better, my migraine is now gone."

"What happened, why were you outside?"

"I heard someone getting into the chicken pen and went to look, whoever it was attacked me."

"Then we need to call the Gendarmerie!"

"I don't think that will be necessary, because I think that is their car approaching from the village."

A few hours later, Nicolaus sat in the doctor's study as the wolf looked at his neck. "You say that you think he shot you with something?" the doctor asked as he peered into the fox's fur.

"I know he did, but I don't know why?"

"We need to take you in the next room and make an x-ray of your neck."

"This doesn't make any sense?" the police office snapped as he looked over his notes. "Someone is in your study and then a few minutes later there is another intruder in the church. Then about half an hour later, Nicolaus is assaulted!"

"The question is who this Nick Wilde is?" the little priest asked. "If that was him, then why does he want Nicolaus to go to Zootopia? He was planning to go there anyways?"

The doctor shrugged as he led Nickolas from the room and into his nearby office for an x-ray. What they discovered was a surprise to them all!

"Whatever it is…well, it is fused into your brainstem and is seemingly sending out pulses to balance your blood flow in the brain and surrounding tissues!" the doctor excitedly said as he held the x-ray up to the light board.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that this device is keeping you from having another migraine!"

"So he stuck something in the right spot in my brain to make me well?"

"This is a miracle, Nick! Think about if this was available in the market! How many patients with migraines could live productive lives without pain and suffering! I never heard of such a device being made anywhere, this is state of the art!"

"Calm down Doc," the police officer sighed. "Are you telling us that someone came into our tiny little backwater village and just happened to cure someone else who years ago wandered here without his memories? That makes as much sense as you claiming that whoever broke into your study smelled like a bunny and a fox."

"My assailant looked like a fox, but I could swear he had big ears like a rabbit," Nick added. "He also attacked me like a rabbit would, kind of a hopping kickboxing attack."

"Great, we're looking for a floppy bunny looking fox that goes around saving mammals with medical miracles."

"I think the answer is in Zootopia, with this Nick Wilde?" the priest added.

"Yeah, I don't think so," the police officer grunted. "I looked that name up in Interpol's database and Nick Wilde is a police officer with the ZPD. He and his partner, Judy Hopps are on an extended assignment with the ZBI. I've got a call from his boss… a Chief Bogo."

The doctor sat down at his computer and typed in Nick Wilde's name, a picture appeared of the fox in his blue police uniform. "Nicolaus!" the doctor called out as he looked at the online image and then the fox sitting in a chair nearby. "He looks just like you!"

* * *

**Cair Lundem or Lundein would be London. The city is self-governing and not under the control of the Seven Houses. **

**Soldier's wine or sour wine was a low-quality vinegary wine that was used, along with water and herbs such as coriander or caraway, to make a Roman drink called Posca. This was drunk by society's lower classes and also the empire's soldiers. It may have been what the sponge, which was stuck to the end of a spear, was dipped in before it was offered to Jesus as he hung on the cross after he called out that he was thirsty. Posca was actually a healthy drink that contained many anti-oxidants and vitamin C. The vinegary wine also killed most** **of the bacteria in the water, rendering it safer to drink than just plain water. **

**Slavery in post-Romano-Briton was a thriving institution and one of history's most famous slaves of that era was Saint Patrick, who was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery in Ireland. He escaped and returned to his British home, after many years of studying Christianity he had a vision. "****_I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us." _****Patrick returned to Ireland not as a slave, but as a Christian missionary.**

**Concerning the great fox migration in this story, the red fox is one of the most adaptable canids on the planet and its ancestor migrated from Eurasia into the Northern Hemisphere from across the Arctic Circle to North America. Red foxes are also found in the Middle East and North Africa. During their ancestor's wanderings, they would have encountered their cousins the grey foxes, arctic foxes, kit foxes, fennec foxes, and others. A universal fox language is just a creation for this story, although Aideen would encounter slight variances in their language which would sometimes make communication difficult when speaking to the wild fox. (Think of putting an Englishman, an American, and an Australian in the same room.) By the time that Nick was born, this language had faded away into history and was replaced by a universal common language. **


	10. Standing Stones

**Chapter 10: Standing Stones**

* * *

**_His fallen head that he held so high,_**

**_Looks vainly now for the banks of Wye,_**

**_Between the smoke and the sulky sky:_**

**_But his heart is left in a greener grave._**

Ballad of the Last Prince from WELSH BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS by Ernest Rhys

**Nick and Judy follow the wild fox to where he is desperately trying to get them to go. Arthur goes to the great hall to try to make peace between the kings.**

* * *

**489**

Nick thought that the coyote's village had to be close to their camp by the sea, but he was surprised when they boarded dugout canoes and paddled up the river for several hours, it was well past noon when they landed ashore. Then they trekked deep into the dark woods and further away from the river's shoreline. It was late afternoon by the time they found themselves at the bottom of a steep hillside and ascending a trail that had been hewed between two dense thickets of brambles. The wild fox, who was wearing the tunic around his waist as if it was a skirt, was pulling at his paw as Nick huffed and puffed his way upwards. The path was narrow and they had to walk in single file order, the wild fox led the way with Nick in tow. Behind him was Aideen, who despite her heavy chain mail armor and winged iron cap, was still excited about their quest. Following her was a coyote and then Judy. Behind the rabbit were the two large bull brothers, a couple of stout spear wolves, and then the remainder of the coyotes.

Nick glanced back at Judy, the rabbit was frowning as she tried not to blush whenever she looked up at the trail before them. The coyote in front of her was wearing a loincloth, which did not fully keep the smaller rabbit from seeing more than she wished. Then there was his grey fluffy tail which wagged as he walked, sometimes brushing into Judy's face by accident. "Enjoying the scenic view!" Nick called back to her. She blushed again and then stuck out her tongue at him in reply. Bors began to laugh and the large bull's laughter was like thunder. His brother, however, looked confused and didn't understand what was going on.

The large bull's deep laughter drew the attention of the wild fox in the lead and he turned back to look at Judy with curiosity and then at Aideen. The vixen spoke to him in the old language, with barks and yips, before he smiled and he shook his furry head in disbelief at what she was telling him. Stopping, he barked and growled in another language to the unsuspecting coyote. The coyote turned and looked down at Judy before he glanced both to his left and then his right, then he leaned over and seized the rabbit in his powerful paws.

Judy panicked as he lifted her from the ground and she defensively kicked out at him before she realized what his true intentions were. The coyote just held her up before he turned and sat her gently down on the trail in front of him. She looked up at him in surprise as he gave her a "problem solved" kind of look and then he gave her a shooing motion with his paws. This caused the other coyotes, along with the wolves and bulls to burst out laughing again.

"Come on little Hopper!" Sir Bors called from behind. "You are holding up our line."

Judy gave the bull what Nick liked to call "that look", as they laughed at her again and the fox saw something mischievous in her amethyst eyes. "Carrots, don't you dare…" he began to warn her.

He was too late as Judy hopped and then bound ears first into the surrounding brambles, weaving in and out of the offending thicket of vines with their sharp thorns. The others lost sight of her for a moment before she popped out at the top of the trail and grinned down at them without a scratch on her. "Come on slowpokes!" she challenged them from above before she turned and walked to the top of the ridge. There she stopped and exclaimed, "Oh my!"

A few minutes later the rest of the adventures and their guides reach the ridge top and joined the rabbit as she looked down at the village below. Nestled along the shores of a bright blue pool of water were a large number of round wooden huts made of wattle and daub construction. Rivercane, wood, and vines had been weaved into sturdy frames and then coated with clay. The hut roofs were made of thick thatches of grass that had been bundled together and tied with vines. Corn, squash, and beans grew in nearby fields and salted fillets of fish were pegged to wooden frames, which leaned over smoldering fires so they could be cured by the smoke. There were well over a hundred coyotes and foxes gathered near a twelve-foot high standing stone. The wild fox grabbed Nick's arm and pointed at the stone. "Waah-i-ald!" he reverently yipped out.

* * *

**489**

Arthur stood in front of the great hall's entry, his way inside was blocked by several mail-clad rams with their sharp axes and watching them were a pawful of equally armored wolves gripping their spears as they suspiciously watched the other warriors. Three very burly bulls warily observed both groups while they shouldered their own massive swords and axes.

When he had prepared to leave Henry earlier, the weasel stopped him and bid him wait. A few moments later the slave girl returned with the war band's armorer and its blacksmith. "You can't go dress like you just came from a battle," Henry sighed as he pointed at the bear's trusty, but worn, chain mail coat. "We have something for you to change into that is more fitting a warlord."

The blacksmith, a strong tall muscle-bound bull, carefully placed a cloth-covered packet onto the table with a clunking sound. Arthur felt the armorer's paws begin to unlace his chain mail and the bear carefully stripped it from his body**. **"Take off that cheap linen tunic too, for it is threadbare," the bear said as he pulled out a finer red-colored silk long-sleeved tunic and handed it to Arthur.

"Now for this," the bull snorted as he peeled back the cloth which covered a new set of armor inside. He reverently held up a mail hauberk made with shining bronze feather-like overlapping scale plates. When he was just a cub, Arthur had heard of such armor from Sir Ector and it was called by the Legionnaires as a lorica plumata. This was truly a great general's armor!

"Where did you find this?" Arthur muttered in awe as he looked at the finely crafted mail shirt.

"It belonged to the great Ambrosius, he who led the last of the Legionnaires against the raiders from over the wall," Henry replied as he unpacked a large royal red wool cape with gold trim. "Red is the traditional color of a general."

The blacksmith pulled out one last item, a bronze and iron helmet with the design of a dragon etched upon it and topped with a scarlet red feathery plume. "The helmet of Ambrosius," he lovingly sighed. "Such artistic work has not ever been made in my lifetime."

So now Arthur stood in his new armor, which glittered in the torchlight, just outside of the great hall's doorway. He didn't look like just a mere warrior, but almost like the god of war himself. "You cannot bring your weapons inside the hall," a ram nervously challenged him. "No weapons are allowed."

"Do you know who am I?" Arthur calmly replied.

The guard flinched and slightly backed away. "You are Arthur, the commander of our war band," he finally answered.

"I am so in the field, but when I am here in Caer Camlann, I am the commander of the guard!" the bear growled back as he shoved his way past the guards and into the hall, the ram just glared at him as he passed. Arthur was greatly concerned with what was going on at the entry because the guard was supposed to have soldiers from each of the seven houses. Tonight, there were none of the deer or any of his fellow bears protecting the hall and also only a few bulls. Too many rams were present, all warriors he did not know. Inside the room were a few more of his fellow warriors, all disarmed and standing as they glumly looked at what was going on at the other end of the hall.

At the king's table, there was the sound of yelling, and Arthur stopped in surprise at what he saw. King Aldroen and King Cyflym were both arguing with King Maelgwn about outlawing all the foxes, the stately priest King Guethelin stood and seemed unconvinced by either party. The seat of the House of Foroedd was empty of course and he wondered if they had even summoned the Fisher King?

What rankled Arthur the most were the two others who were present, his cousin Mordred was sitting in the seat for the House of Arth and lounging carelessly in the seat of the House of Tarw was not King Lot, but his younger son Agravain.

"I hope your father is well?" Arthur called out to Agravain, causing the bull to flinch in surprise. "The last I heard was that he was still the King along the Wall."

"Ah, cousin!" Mordred spoke, saving Agravain from having to explain why he was sitting in his father's chair. "I had not heard that you had returned and don't you look just grand tonight!" The honeyed words dripped from the bear's tongue, Mordred was always one who could turn a phrase or two. "Congratulations, good King Maelgwn said that you made peace with those nasty barbarians along the coast."

"Are you claiming the throne of the House of Arth?" Arthur bluntly asked to the dismay of Mordred, who stood and walked across the platform to look down at his cousin.

"With Sir Cai away, I am the next in line after the steward. I am here tonight speaking for our house on this important matter."

"Did the bear clans choose you for this task?"

"There wasn't time to summon the clans. This was a heinous murder of the highest order committed against the Seven Houses themselves…"

"Then by whose authority do you speak?"

"I am the nephew of Uther and he died without an heir, the throne should be mine!"

"It is up to our clans to choose an heir, not for you to proclaim yourself so."

"You overstep yourself, Arthur!" Mordred snapped in anger as he pushed his cloak back over his shoulder to reveal he too had a sword.

"Mordred…Arthur!" King Guethelin called out to them both. "There is much to consider tonight, come sit down."

"There is nothing to consider!" King Cyflym yelled. "My son and heir was murdered by foxes! I demand justice! Outlaw those vile beasts once and for all, for they have been a pox on my house and my kingdom!"

"You and King Aldroen dared to invade my kingdom and have killed my subjects while I was away with my army defending our lands from the invaders!" King Maelgwn snarled. "I demand the return of my liegemammal! I demand galanas for the homes your warriors burned and those they slew! I demand…"

Arthur had moved towards Mordred, who still stood on the raised platform where the kings stood arguing. He willed himself not to reach for his sword, but he kept his eyes locked on the arrogant bear that looked down at him first in anger, and then suddenly Mordred gave a startled glance towards the doorway where there was a loud commotion.

"Where's that little shite!" a bull roared as he shoved his way past the guards. "Where is that whelp of mine, the one I curse that I sired?"

King Lot had stumbled into the building in a rage. His red and green tunic was torn and spattered with blood. So too was his huge war ax, which he gripped in one of his large hoofs, but in his other hoof, he was dragging a disemboweled body of a black-clad tan furred fox looking mammal.

Throwing the dead assassin at his now panicked son, the elderly bull slumped onto a nearby bench. "There is your fox Cyflym!" he snapped at the hare king. "It is amazing what a mammal will tell you when you start feeding him his own entrails. He confessed to me the whole sorted story and you have much to answer for Aldroen!"

"That is jackal!" King Guethelin exclaimed as he looked down at the dead canid. "He was an assassin with the ancient cult of Anubis!**"**

"Wait! What do you mean that Aldroen has to answer?" Mordred asked in surprise. "What does he have to do with this?"

"You've been wounded!" Arthur called out as he rushed to the bull king's side.

"Tis no more than a mere scratch," Lot sighed out, but he began to slightly pant. "Never the less, I think that it was a killing stroke at that." The bull pulled a wicked-looking knife from his belt and tossed it onto the table.

"Don't touch that Arthur!" King Guethelin cried out as he ran to the bull's side. Tearing his own priestly robe, the buck used the cloth to carefully pick up the knife and gently handed it to King Maelgwn. The wolf sniffed it and then quickly set it down. "Poison!" he growled. "It's coated with a viper's venom."

"Quickly bring a healer!" Guethelin commanded a guard.

"It's too late old friend," Lot groaned, he slumped as if the very life was draining out of his powerful body. "My fate is sealed, not in battle but by a cowardly blade."

"Where is Aldroen!" Arthur yelled as he looked up at Mordred, who still stood on the platform. "Where did he and Agravain go?"

The bear looked around in confusion. "I don't know?" he finally answered. "What is going on around here?"

"Treachery of the base kind," King Lot slowly answered. "Aldroen hired an assassin to kill Cyflym's son and blame the foxes. He wanted a war between the other Houses and Maelgwn."

"He knew you wouldn't agree and sent the jackal to kill you," Maelgwn softly added. "He wanted Agravain to sit on your throne didn't he?" The bull grimaced as he nodded.

To Mordred's credit, the bear drew his sword and called out for the guards to follow him as he went in pursuit of the ram king and the cowardly bull. It was then that Arthur noticed that the ram guards were also gone, only the bulls and wolves joined the bear. "Be careful cousin!" he called out to the other bear. Mordred looked back at him and gave a determined nod.

"Bring wine!" Guethelin commanded as he gently held the bull's hoof with his own. "Rest, the healer is coming."

"No wine…" Lot gasped out before he leaned back. The poison was moving through his body quickly and it was now just a matter of moments before it claimed his life. "Mead…a warrior's drink…bring me a bowl of mead!" The priest-king accepted a bowl of the drink from a nearby retainer and helped the bull lift it to his trembling lips. He drank deeply and sighed and then fumbled for his ax.

Arthur bent over and picked up the ax, gently placing it into the bull's lap. Lot looked up at him with unsteady eyes and gave the bear a thin smile. "We should have made you the High King," he weakly said in an apologetic tone. "The Houses need a High King to keep the peace."

An elderly wolf arrived and knelt next to the king as he looked and then sniffed the wound. He sadly shook his head before the healer stated, "I have herbs which will make him comfortable, but I cannot save him. This venom works quickly milord, he should have died already."

"No…no herbs!" Lot slurred out weakly. "I…I am war born, the son of a warrior." With great effort, he sifted himself and leaned forward. "I shall face the angel of death while standing with my war ax in my hoofs!"

Arthur assisted the unsteady bull to his feet, while King Maelgwn lifted the war ax and held it to the Lot's chest, helping the mortally wounded king grasp its haft. Lot gasped several times and then in a fading whisper called out "Hold the wall, you rogues! Hold the wall!"

With those last words, Lot of the House of Tarw, he who was the King along the Wall and the Guardian of the North, joined his ancestors and the gods.

His kingdom had no time to mourn as they hastily buried him near a ring of ancient standing stones.

* * *

**Judy has her Br'er Rabbit moment in the brambles. **

**Galanas is an early Welsh law which is a fine for a murder that is assessed upon the slayer and the slayer's kinsfolk. The ancient Irish had a similar law called éraic and the Anglo-Saxon called it weregild. **

**The King along the Wall - Legends have it that Coel Hen was the last of the Roman **_**Duces Brittanniarum**_** (Dukes of Briton) at the time the Legions left and his kingdom controlled the lands in northern Briton up to the Roman-built Hadrian's Wall. Coel became the ancestor of what would become known of the Men of the North (Gwŷr y Gogledd), the British/Welsh who would battle not only the encroaching Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians during the next few centuries, but also the Picts and Irish Scoti from the other side of the wall. **


	11. The Cairn

**Chapter 11: The Cairn **

* * *

**_And when Britain had been founded by this noble lord,  
Valiant men bred there, who thrived on battle.  
In many an age bygone, they brought about trouble.  
More wondrous events have occurred in this country  
Than in any other I know of, since that same time.  
But of all those who dwelt there, of the British kings  
Arthur was always judged noblest, as I have heard tell._**

From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

**Nick and Judy arrive at the wild fox's village only to find out more about "Waah-i-ald!" and that something was buried there for them a long time ago. Agent Minos of the ZBI travels back to his homeland overseas to bring Nicolaus back to Zootopia. **

* * *

**489**

Nick and Judy stood on a tall ridge that overlooked the small village full of coyotes and foxes, below them the inhabitants were in various stages of dress and undress and had excitedly gathered with tails wagging around a tall stone, a large granite monolith which towered above a huge pile of rocks. Suddenly the wild fox wearing a linen tunic tied around his waist like if it was a kilt, urgently pulled at Nick's paw.

"Come on Carrots, it's time to go where angels fear to tread!" Nick called out as he grabbed her paw too. "Well, considering this is a village full of canids maybe that should be where rabbits fear to tread. After this, a visit to the Mystic Spring Oasis will never bother you again!"

Judy looked at all the gathered predators and sighed heavily as she was led down the path towards them.

"What's the matter Fluff? Don't tell me you are afraid of two dozen or so foxes?"

"I was just thinking about where we might be. If we were where the university campus will one day be built when we arrived, where are we now in conjunction with the future city?"

"Well since we are over half a day's trip from the river's mouth, which I guess is the Lion's Tail, I would think that we are now somewhere in what will become the Snowy Hills of Tundratown? Maybe they'll dam this place up to make one of the ice lakes?"

The villagers below were happy to see the adventurers. At least they were happy to see Nick and Judy, as they rushed forward in their excitement to touch the red fox and the gray rabbit as the group climbed down the ridge. "Well at least the priest and your brother stayed behind to repair the ship," Sir Bors chuckled to Aideen from behind her. "So much for protecting your maidenly virtue, well at least the so-called virtue of your eyes!" The bull snorted in an amused tone will he shouldered his massive shield and shook his head at the scene below them.

The red fox vixen glanced back at the bull, her embarrassment concerning the condition of dress and undress of the native foxes and coyotes had finally been replaced by that of resignation. "Fie, so yon savages do not know how to dress proper?" she finally replied. "That nay be my concern, for they art truly just children of nature."

The wild fox had stopped pulling at Nick and looked back at her. His ears drooped as if he was embarrassed by his fellow villagers, although he still did not understand why nudity was such an issue with the strangers? Still, he knew that she was uncomfortable with it.

Aideen saw his look of concern and gave him a smile before she called out in the old language with yips, whines, and barks. He still looked distressed at first, but then she gave him a smile and he grinned back with his tail wagging.

It was then that Nick suddenly realized that there was a lot more to the old fox language than just the archaic words they spoke to each other. There was also the motion of their ears, their facial expressions, tail movements, and even bodily motions which were part of their conversation.

"Waah-i-ald!" the excited villagers chanted as they surrounded the red fox tod and his rabbit companion.

"Gee Carrots, I've never had anyone except you act so happy to see little old me!" Nick laughed out as they were pulled towards the tall stone and the pile of rocks.

"Do you think they will sacrifice him?" one of the spear wolves snickered, causing Judy's ears to droop and look back at the two warriors. The two canines in chain mail were now ogling some of the scantily dressed coyote females.

The crowd stopped at the pile of rocks in front of the tall standing stone. "Waah-i-ald!" the wild fox called out as he began to pick up some of the rocks from the pile, the other villagers quickly joined him.

"That is a cairn_,_ so I think they are digging up something or someone," Sir Lionel grunted as he joined them. The large bull had an amused look up his face.

"Judy, I'm not going to be happy if they dig up fox bones!" Nick called over to her, but she had stepped behind the standing rock and was now looking up.

"Ah, Nick…!" Judy urgently called out. "You need to see this!"

He stepped around the stone and looked up to see that there was a crudely looking, but familiar, carving deeply etched into it. "Where have I seen this before?" he muttered.

"It is in the Museum of Natural History. Remember we saw it during that case when the museum was vandalized?"

"Oh yeah, the one where that fancy-dressed up wolverine…what was his name?" You know, he was the guy who always wore a pink dress shirt under his scruffy navy blue suit and walked around with a stupid flower pinned to his jacket."

"Chuckles, he calls himself Chuckles and claims that he is a criminal mastermind."

"That's right he was the goofball who tried to flood part of Sahara Square and was involved with that Sequoia Towers real estate fiasco. Didn't he once condescendingly call you adorable or something?"

"Nick, you know he called me adorable and I hated that!"

"Well you can be!" the fox snickered as he looked up at the carving. "I still say this looks like a fox with big rabbit ears and feet."

"The archeologist claimed it was supposed to be a god or maybe a crude etching of a fennec fox?"

"Waah-i-ald!" the wild fox said as he joined them and pointed up at the etching. Then he grabbed both of their paws and pulled them together before he pointed up again and repeated, "Waah-i-ald!"

"All this time, I thought there were just trying to pronounce my name," Nick said as he looked at the other fox and then back up at the figure on the stone. "I guess that is what they call their god and when he heard my name, it sounds about the same."

The wild fox pushed the two of them closer together and then with an agitated sigh, he pointed at them and then at the etching before he called out again, "Waah-i-ald!"

"Ah come on!" Nick scoffed. "Is he trying to say I'm related to their god?"

Before Judy could answer, there was cheering from the other side of the rock as the villagers pulled a small black plastic-looking box from among the huge rubble of stones.

"Fie, what be this?" Aideen asked as she looked down at the box. "Tis like nothing I have even seen before?"

"Where is the lid to open this thing?" Bors said as he leaned over the container and pushed it lightly with his hoof. "You want me to crack this open with my sword?"

Before anyone could answer, one of the coyotes reverently lifted the box and carried it to an elder who was watching from one of the lodges.

"Verily, I take it that the answer is in yon hut?" Aideen sighed as she finally removed her helmet.

"Well ask your friend!" Judy sighed as she looked first at the vixen and then the wild fox. "I would really like to know what is going on around here, wouldn't you?"

The vixen growled, yipped and barked at the wild fox, who smiled and pointed towards the lodge. The fox excitedly barked and yipped back as he waved them towards the doorway, the only word which the other travelers understood was that name "Waah-i-ald". Aideen cocked her head in confusion and yipped and growled back.

"What's the matter?" Nick called out as he walked over to her side.

"He sayth that they have been waiting since before his grandsire's, grandsire's time to find out what this Waah-i-ald hath left in yon box."

"That sounds like a really long time! I wonder why they have never opened it before?"

Aideen looked back at the wild fox and barked and yipped out her question. His ears flattened and he looked offended before he barked and whined back. "Fie, I thinketh we hath upset him?" she tried not to giggle. "He said it twas not for his tribe to open, but thine."

* * *

**Present Day **

Agent Topis Minos glanced out of the police car's window as it bumped along the gravel road. Despite his checkered past with the law here, the aegean wildcat in the black suit still loved the familiar countryside they were passing. This was the home of his birth, a place that he had to flee from when he was younger.

"All those years I chased first your papa and then you, it's still hard for me to believe you are now a police officer!" the gendarme driving the car laughed. "Agent Minos of the ZBI! I bet your papa is rolling in his grave, he was the best smuggler I ever knew."

"I doubt it, my father was always an admirer of you and the local officers. He only followed grandpa into smuggling after the Great War, when the government seized the family business."

"Your grandfather was loyal patriot, he just chose the wrong political party to back after the war ended and paid for it with his life and property."

"We all paid for all those years of stupidity by the corrupt central government's bureaucrats and their damned five and ten year plans. Collectives, quotas, fixed pricing, and such nonsense destroyed our economy. We are at least twenty years behind the remainder of the world in our technology because of their stubbornness."

"Granted, but they are now all gone. A new republic has replaced the old socialist party, but now we also have the mafia back too."

Minos looked over at the driver and smiled. "All those years when you chased us through the mountains, you could have caught us several times but you didn't. I have always wondered why you sometimes let us escape."

"The villagers around here would have starved if you hadn't helped them. Even our political commissioner knew that, may the gods give rest to his atheist soul. Your papa was like our local version of Robin Hood, taking the riches from his smuggling and giving it to the poor."

"Before we get to the farm, have you still no clue about who broke into the doctor's office and then defaced the church's confessional? Why would someone first attack and then help this Nicolaus?"

"That fox is an enigma! He was found wandering around the hills and still has no memories. He is having dreams, but he claims that they are someone else's. Look Topas, why did you come here so fast after we inquired about that ZPD police officer Nick Wilde? The police chief in Zootopia was vague at best about his officer. Please just tell me that our dear friend Nicolaus is not some crazed serial killer!"

"We have no record of this Nicolaus in our database either or any idea what he might want with Officer Nick Wilde."

"Damn, so you don't know who he is either?"

"Look, the docs at the university want to study that device in his neck. It is a medical breakthrough and we want it safely in their paws so it can be studied. Do you have any idea what something like that is worth on the market?" the cat partly lied as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistachio. He knew that it was the DNA test results, which had accompanied the doctor's report, which had also caused a commotion at the university. The fox's DNA exactly matched those of Nick Wilde, who had disappeared during an experiment at the lab.

Minos looked back out of the car's window at the farms and the hills beyond. It was about this time yesterday when he was sitting at a table in an upscale bistro in downtown Zootopia and was listening to a very pretty, but also a very self-absorbed sand cat. He was trying his best not to yawn as she yammered and complained about everything.

Bored with her constant talking, he begun to look around the room at the other patrons and noticed an odd couple sitting in a booth in the back of the restaurant. From the way that they were positioned, he took them to be lovers on a date. Both the light gray furred hare, with the black striped ears, and the white-furred arctic vixen were very, very familiar looking. He stared at the hare, trying to remember where he had seen him before, but he could not place the face. Why did he have these feelings that they were both very dangerous, but not to him?

"Are you listening to me?" the sand cat complained as she noisily chewed on a breadstick. He smiled over at her, trying not to respond with the first ungentlemanly answer that came into his mind.

"Yes, you were saying that your roommate always leaves her underwear in the bathtub…" he began, but she cut him off as she continued with her story.

He looked back at the hare and the vixen again. The vixen had some faint stains on her arms and paws, that looked kind of like either grease or oil which she had tried to scrub off clean. So, she must work with some type of machinery. Carefully, he pulled out his phone and took a photo of the two, then sent it to his office with a text asking them to review and to also try to match them on the agency's facial recognition network. The sand cat was so self-absorbed in her story that she didn't even notice he wasn't paying attention again.

A few minutes later, a response came back and he gave a frown as he read the text message. The hare was only an accountant named Jack Savage and had no criminal record. He couldn't help but chuckle at a prey animal having the last name of Savage. A copy of the accountant's professional page with the Zootopian Accounting and Finance Association popped up and the hare didn't look like he had lived much of an exciting life. The vixen's picture showed her standing next to a souped-up dragster and that explained her faint stains, she worked on cars. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and returned to pretending to be interested in the other cat's conversation.

Thank the gods that his phone rang before they finished dessert! Much to his date's dismay, he explained that duty called and that he had an emergency that required him to leave the city that night. He quickly paid the bill and hustled her into a Zoober, sending her away from his life, and returned home to quickly pack and catch the next flight overseas.

"We are here!" the gendarme triumphantly called out, pulling him from his memories. They had arrived at an adorable whitewashed stone cottage, where various mammals stood around, both inside and outside, and it seemed to the agent that most of the villagers had shown up to see him again.

* * *

**A cairn is a Scottish Gaelic term for a site made from a pile of loose stones, commonly used as a burial site marker. Large chambered cairns, dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, are found throughout the British Islands and Ireland. A modern cairn can be found on a mountainside outcropping in the Balquidder Glen, which the locals call Creag an Tuirc (crag of the boar). This marks the traditional gathering place of the highland Clan MacLaren and is also their ancient war cry. From there you can look down into the glen, the loch below, and also the church graveyard where the famous outlaw Rob Roy is buried.**

**Chuckles is a Zootopian criminal mastermind who bedevils Nick and Judy in the game **_**Zootopia: Crime Files.**_

**The dashing super-spy Jack Savage in my first story ****_Zootopia: A Paradox in Time,_**** became a mild manner accountant in the restored/repaired timeline. However, he was reunited with Skye! She was Jack's wife in the other timeline and had been tragically murdered by another agent of the too powerful Agency. In the story's end, they met again when Jack's car broke down in front of the garage, where she was working as a mechanic. Jack is also the thin hare in the black suit who Nicolaus remembers in his nightmares. **


	12. The Merlin Factor

**Chapter 12: The Merlin Factor **

* * *

"**_Merlin...if only you were at my side, my old friend, to give me courage. There are no war tricks that will fool Mordred and Morgana. More than I ever did, I need you now. Where are you, Merlin?"_**

Arthur calling for Merlin in the movie _Excalibur._

**Arthur meets his true love Guinevere and without Merlin's advice, he makes an important future decision. Meanwhile, a stranger manipulates a foolish witch's hatred for Merlin in order to put into motion a future ally of Arthur's.**

* * *

**489**

Arthur had removed his war helmet as he stood upon the stout Legion built battlement and watched as Mordred's ragtag force of warriors limped their way back into the city. "They ran straight into an ambush milord," a voice softly said from the darkness and the bear was startled enough by the intruder's unseen presence to reach for his sword. He relaxed as the elderly weasel slipped from out from the shadows. "Mordred is courageous enough, but he is too brash. You should have led the pursuit instead. I'm sure you would have seen the ambush."

"I doubt that Henry, it seems that Aldroen is one step ahead of us this time."

"He is a sly one for being a ram," the spy agreed and then he leaned against the stone wall. "You do know that Mordred is a danger to you? He wants the kingship and will kill you for it if he thought that doing so would gain him the throne. Your father would have…"

"My father was ruthless and feared, that was why he died and no one mourned his passing. No, Mordred has a greater claim to the throne then I have, and besides, who would want a bastard like me as a king?"

"My father would stand with you if you chose to claim the crown," a familiar female voice answered his question. Arthur quickly turned to see that a she-bear stood at the top of the stairs. She was dressed in a simple light blue tunic over which a flaxen gown like peplos was pinned at her shoulders with brass broaches and the simple dress was belted with a plain brown woven hemp sash. A green and red tartan woolen plaid palla was tightly pulled across her very famine curves in an attempt to keep the evening's chill at bay. He stared at her at first and then blinked in surprise while he looked her over. Her fur was a yellow-brown near her muzzle and ran towards a darker brown color tone by her paws. She did not wear one of those silly hennin or pointed hats, that had briefly been in fashion, but instead only wore a simple lace veil over her ears.

"I was told that you were here," he greeted her as she stepped next to him. "I am sorry I did not seek you out earlier, but circumstances…"

"Are you talking to yourself Wart?" she asked with a giggle.

Startled by her question, Arthur looked around only to realize that the weasel had disappeared like a ghost into the surrounding shadowy darkness. "It seems my companion has abandoned me," he sighed. "And please don't call me Wart!"

"You will always be my little Wart! You never complained before when I called you that, especially when we were teenagers in the orchard's high grass."

"There is much we did under those old apple trees which I won't complain about, but now we are much older and…"

"And not so free with ourselves," she finished his sentence.

He gave her a chuckle, before he continued, "As for your father, I doubt he would stand with me if he only knew about the improper advances I made towards his daughter under those trees."

"Advances?" She giggled as she took his arm and leaned against him. He sniffed her familiar scent and she still smelled like the woods of home. "As I recall my dear Wart, you were the shy one and I was the one who made those improper advances."

"I've missed you, Guinevere," he huskily sighed as she put her head upon his shoulder. "Hell, I miss being young and carefree back in that orchard!"

"Well you've grown up to become a mighty warlord and I have taken up embroidery."

"You do embroidery now? How exciting that must be?" he sarcastically laughed. She gave him a shove with her elbow in response. "So does that mean you have given up archery?"

"I sneak out and practice with Meredith when she visits with her father Fergus from DunBroch. That she-bear is still as headstrong as she was when we were young and also remains unmarried. It seems that she hasn't found a suitable suitor ever since that bungled and ill-fated clan challenge for her paw her parents held when she was younger. "

Arthur chuckled as he remembered the pretty, but very boisterous, reddish brown-furred bear from the highlands and her heavily accented brogue.

"Now all I do every day is just sit around with my friends and work on a tapestry. It's a grand hanging and is all about your victory over the sea boars at the Woods of Celidon. Yes, we all just sit around with our needles and thread, while we gossip about how dashingly handsome Arthur is and wonder why such a strapping bear has never married?"

"Because this strapping bear has fallen in love with the wrong lady. Someone who is far above his station in life, too good…"

"Shut up Wart and kiss me."

"As you command milady," he whispered as he took her in his arms and they kissed.

"By all the gods, are you two at it again?" Mordred mockingly challenged them with a snort as he entered the courtyard below. The other bear's chainmail was stained red with blood and his shield showed nicks from ax blows, proving that he was in battle. "You two should know that there is a nearby orchard you can hide in just like when we were cubs!"

"Ah, ther you are my dear Mordred! So, where is Aldroen's head?" Guinevere sarcastically replied in a faux sweet tone. "You boasted to me that you would bring back the ram's head by his horns."

"Alas my dear lady, his head is still attached to his cowardly body. You should have been there Arthur! Surely we would have caught the scoundrel if the great Arthur was within our ranks or so that is what some of the warriors whispered to each other as we returned."

"I doubt that!" Arthur grunted. "Let me guess, he had his rams form a shield wall on the bridge across the river?" He looked the other male bear over again and shook his head slightly because although his cousin Mordred was smaller and thinner, he had the unique ability to "turn a phrase like a fox" as the commoners would say. The bear was more than capable of verbally soothing anyone who disagreed with him, using logic to win his disagreements instead of the sword and that was a talent long lost with many of the others he knew. Only the priestly King Guethelin, the Lady of the Lake, and Merlin had that talent, it was one which he wished that he possessed. Sure he knew that he could inspire others, not in his verbal wit, but his strong sword arm.

"Aye, we had no choice but try to batter our way across the bridge," Mordred answered.

"True cousin, the next crossing was way too far downstream," Arthur agreed as he began to walk down the stairs. Guinevere only tightened her grip on his arm as she joined him. "King Aldroen is a slippery one and I am sure that he has more planned than just Lot's murder and the butchering of the fox clans. I've been told that he has an alliance with the boars along the coast and I fear good King Maelgwn's lands are in peril."

"What about the wall?" Mordred asked as he stepped next to his rival's side as they continued towards the great hall. "Now that Lot is dead, do you think the northern clans will invade?"

"I'm sure that the pipes are already wailing, calling the clans down from the mountains. We must marshal all the forces we can to meet the enemy. I will send one of King Guethelin's bucks to the bear clans calling them to meet in the sacred grove at Kalard. It is past time for the House of Arth to have a king upon its throne."

Mordred turned quickly towards Arthur and his paw reached towards his blade.

"Promise me that you will keep the clans in your heart and do what is right by them and not yourself," Arthur continued. "Leaders should serve those they lead and not the other way around."

"What are you saying?"

"Arthur, just what are you telling us?" Guinevere interjected as her grip tightened on his arm.

"I am saying that I will stand with you Mordred when you claim the crown."

"Arthur…" Mordred began.

"No, good Cai is gone and we are at a crisis. I fear that we will have to battle for our very lives and that of our followers, for that reason alone the House of Arth needs its king. I cannot lead them, too many of the clan leaders won't follow a bastard on the throne and besides you…"

"But…" Guinevere started, but then she hung her head and whispered. "Have you spoken with Merlin about this?"

"Enough of this talk!" the bear in the grand looking armor growled as he picked up his pace towards the great hall and the awaiting kings. "We have much to do and little time left to do it. I fear that we face an invasion greater than even the Great Conspiracy which the Legionnaires defeated over a hundred years ago. As for Merlin, he is never around when I want him!"

"He just appears when you need him," Guinevere sighed as she ran to catch up with the two male bears.

* * *

**489**

The elderly fat badger threw another pawful of sage onto the fire, filling the cavern with its scented whitish smoke. She mumbled in the old language of the druids, chanting and calling upon the spirits of those ancient forgotten gods which existed before the coming of the Legionnaires. She moaned and screamed in her prayers as he closed her eyes and chanted louder and louder. Then her ears twitched as she heard something fall into the fire and she quickly glanced at the flames, just as there was a popping sound and an explosion, followed by a thick orange smoke which quickly filled the cavern. Gasping from the very acrid smelling haze, she stumbled into the oak woods outside. Something emerged from the billowing smoke, a figure wrapped in a black cloak.

"Madam Mim," the creature spoke with an amused tone in his voice. "Why have you summoned me?"

The badger fell onto her knees and lowered her muzzle down upon the moss-covered earth. "Milord, I…I…this has never happened before?" she mumbled in fear. "Who are you?"

"You have summoned me, Witch! Did you not call for Morrígu?"

"But Morrígu is a goddess? Are you not a male?"

A reddish tail gave a wagging flick in an almost feline manner from behind the creature in the black cloak and his movements were almost fox-like. "I can come either as a goddess or as a god, who are you to judge what manner that I show myself to you, mortal?"

The witch ground her muzzle back into the moss and whimpered.

"Come Mim, why have you called me?"

"Tis the wizard Merlin!" she cried out. "He has insulted me again. He called me a charlatan in public!"

"So witch, are you telling me you have no mystical powers? Surely no mere mortal could summon me as you did without true hidden black magic!"

"Will you give me more powers, enough to challenge and defeat Merlin in a mystical battle?"

"Then summon the old goat to battle, I will give you what powers you will need when the time comes. But, Merlin must die!" the figure growled. A reddish-orange paw reached inside the cloak and then tossed a bag of old gold and silver coins onto the moss in front of the witch's face. "Hire the followers of Anubis to slay him and then the name Mim will be remembered above that of Merlin!"

Mim seized the bundle and glanced up as the hooded figure stepped back into the cavern. When he disappeared, she cautiously crept back inside to look around and gave a sinister grin when she realized that is was empty. Morrígu had come and given her what she needed to destroy Merlin, along with the promise she would be remembered for doing so. Shoving the money into her small bundle of belongings, she made plans to take a ship south to Londinium the next morning.

Days later, far to the south of Mim's cave and in the fog choked city of Londinium, the sounds of the cathedral's bells rang the late hour. Inside the sanctuary, a handsome chestnut-colored young stallion dressed in silvery shining scale mail knelt praying before the altar of the Lion and the Lamb. He held a sword in his hoofs and touched its hilt to the tuft of blond mane which covered his forehead. At first, the knight didn't hear the figure in the dark cloak as it entered into the room, but he tensed and prepared to grip the sword to fend off any attack. "I don't want to draw blood in this holy place!" he called out.

"No my lord knight, I do not come in malice but with news from the north."

"The north is not of my concern."

"Not even if the Children of Anubis have an interest in it? The witch Mim has hired the slayers to murder the wizard Merlin, even as the war drums beat for those who would bring down Arthur."

"Both the witch and the wizard should face the purifying and holy flames of the church for their dark magic, as for Arthur…"

"Is it not said that gallant Sagramor is the church's champion and its defender?" the figure suddenly challenged him. The horse saw a reddish-orange tail slightly wag, so the intruder was a fox. "Will not stop the devil's children from their dark deeds?" With that, the figure turned and swiftly walked towards the narthex. "Alas, then all tis lost for justice in this land!"

"Wait!" Sagramor cried out as he climbed to his feet and rushed after what he thought was a fox. By the time he had reached the door, the figure had vanished. Throwing the door open he looked at the two guards standing there. "Where did the fox go?"

"Milord, no one came past us?" the other armored stallion answered with a salute. "You have been alone in the church as ordered."

Sagramor looked down the streets and then back inside at the sanctuary. He slammed his sword into its sheath. "Summon the company's officers. We have a mission in the north."

Up in the belfry, the figure in the black hooded cloak wound up his climbing rope as he watched the warriors below. Without thinking, he reached up and pulled at his hood so he could itch one of his long ears.

He didn't see the other cloaked figure hidden in the shadows behind him, but his sensitive nose caught a whiff of the unwashed body and his ears heard the faint creak of the boards. With a quick hop of his powerful legs, he leaped backward and away from the assassin's curved blade. His bouncing caused his hood to slip off and his large reddish-orange ears shot erect.

"What are you?" the jackal muttered in surprise as he raised his blade again. "How do you know about us and why did you tell the bear we are going north?"

"Questions…questions…such questions! I guess I beat Mim southward with her job offer and that won't do at all, I really need to plan better in the future and in the past." the long-eared creature chuckled as he stepped back towards an opening on the platform. Above him were the church's bells and behind him was a gap for the bell ropes that led stories down to the bottom of the cathedral. "I also think I should have brought a weapon."

Confident that his strange prey was trapped, the assassin lunged forward and swung his poisoned blade only to only find his victim had leaped from the platform and now gripped onto one of the bell ropes. The bell above rang out loudly from the weight. Twisting, the long-eared fox looking creature swung back towards the jackal and leaped over his head, landing behind him. The jackal quickly turned, but he was too late as a strong foot kicked him in his back and caused him to fall forward into the opening. Wildly flailing, the assassin plunged downward and with a sickening thud, hit the hard stone floor below.

The fox looking creature watched as the jackal fell to his death. "Damn, that wasn't supposed to happen!" he cursed to himself as he looked around in panic. Between the bell tolling and then the jackal falling, there was no way down out of the tower now without being caught by the soldiers below. He looked over toward the river, which ran alongside the cathedral, and shrugged before he got a running start and bound out towards the water.

Sagramor heard the bell's toll and ran through a side door into the cathedral's ringing chamber. He looked upwards towards the belfry and saw that someone was falling towards him. The stallion leaped back just in time to avoid being hit by the falling body. After glancing at the bloody inert body, he drew his sword as he tossed open the cathedral doors and rushed outside and past the guards, pausing at the edge of the river. He had seen the figure in the black cloak diving from the tower, but he looked around in confusion because there was no one in the water and there was not even a ripple in the slow-moving river which indicated that someone had landed in the river. Quickly he looked back up at the tower, to see if the figure might have clung onto something on his way down, but the hooded figure was once again just gone!

* * *

**A peplos was a tunic style dress and a palla is a type of mantle, both were worn by Roman women of wealth and the style would have still been popular with Romano-British society. **

**The battle in the Woods of Celidon was Arthur's seventh victory. **

**Does anyone know which Disney movie Meredith of DunBroch is from? **

**The Sacred Grove of Kalard is created for this story, but the ancient druids worshiped in such oak groves. In the year 60 CE, the Roman governor Suetonius attempted to destroy the druids and ordered an attack against their center of power on the island of Anglesey. His soldiers massacred the druids, despoiled their shrines and cut down their holy oak trees. Druidism survived and later merged with early Christianity making the Celtic Church distinctly different than the Roman Catholic Church. **

**The Great Conspiracy or the Barbarian Conspiracy, started in the winter of 367 when the garrison along Hadrian's Wall rebelled and joined with the Attacotti , Scoti, Picts, Saxons, and some local troops in despoiling much of Roman-controlled northern and western Britain. The marauders were brought to heal by reinforcements led by Flavius Theodosius in 368. **

**What would an Arthurian tale be without the Mad Madam Mim and her witchery? **

**Morrígu or The Morrígan, is an ancient Irish goddess mainly associated with war and fate, and she is often interpreted as a "war goddess". She is one of the sacred three sisters called the three Morrígna.**

**Sir Sagramor in the Arthurian Lancelot-Grail Cycle is the son of the King of Hungary and the daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor. He was considered virtuous, but hot-tempered, and would go into a battle rage.**

**Londinium is just another name for London. The quickest route to travel to northern England during the Romano-British era would have been by sea, but this was also very dangerous because of Saxon, Angle, and Frisian raiders prowled the coast. The legions had built a stone road from London to York now called Ermine Street ("Earninga Straete") or the Old North Road, the Roman name for the road has been forgotten. By land, it still would take several weeks for an army to march to York. However, the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson, led his army from London through York to Stamford Bridge in fewer days than expected and defeated the Norse King Harald Sigurdsson. The notorious 18th-century highwayman Dick Turpin was reputed to have ridden the same route in less than a day on his faithful mare, Black Bess. **


	13. A Black Box & A Red Feather Cape

**Chapter 13: A Black Box & A Red Feather Cape**

* * *

**_Hark and listen to the life of a rich lord  
Who, while he lived, was like no one else  
In bedroom or in court.  
In the time of Arthur this adventure was,  
And he himself, the courteous and royal king.  
Of all knighthood he bore away the honor,  
Wherever he went.  
In his country there was nothing but chivalry:  
He loved all brave knights;  
Cowards were always disgraced._**

From the story _The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (Anonymous 14th Century) _

**Nick and Judy find out what is in the box.** **They also are surprised to find out that they are going to be married that night and don't seem to have a choice in the matter.**

* * *

**489**

Judy let out a small squeak of surprise when the wild fox suddenly grabbed her paw, along with Nick's, and began pulling them toward the hut where the elder had just taken the strange black box that had been dug up from within the pile of stones. It seemed to her that almost every fox and coyote in the village was also excitedly trying to jam themselves into the large hut. The doorway was low built, causing all the coyotes and foxes to have to bend over to enter its confines.

"Well, you two are on your own now!" Sir Lionel snorted as the large bull looked down at the doorway. "Neither Bors nor I can fit into that tiny hole, so good luck to you both and I hope they don't eat you alive!"

"Fie you big oaf, I shall keep them safe!" Aideen proclaimed as she joined them. Then looking at how crowded the hut was, she sighed and handed both her spear and shield to the bull. "Alas, such confines would make yon weapons useless, but I still hath my trusty knife."

"Maybe they will use it to carve up the bunny after she is baked?" one of the wolves joked.

"You're not helping!" Nick snarled as he was shoved inside of the hut. He grabbed Judy and protectively pulled her into his arm, while looked around in awe at the roomful of foxes and coyotes. Everyone was either watching them or the elder. The aged coyote, with whitish-gray fur, was now sitting cross-legged by a small fire in the center of the room. There was a pungent, but very familiar, scent to the smoke and Nick frowned when he sniffed it again. Leaning over he whispered to Judy, "Should we tell them that we are cops and bust them all for illegal possession of catnip?"

Judy just squeezed his paw as she watched the elder fan some of the smoke over the box while he chanted something in yips, barks, and growls. The only word she recognized was the name Waah-i-ald. She heard a slight clunk of metal against metal and turned to look up at Aideen, the vixen was wearing her particular winged helmet again. The fox stood there with her hands on her hips and dressed in the helmet along with her silvery chain mail, she almost looked like some ancient goddess. "What is he saying?" she whispered to the vixen.

"I don't know? He speaketh not in the old fox tongue."

"Then ask your boyfriend," Nick snickered. He realized that his head was beginning to spin a little from the smoke because catnip not only affected felines but also foxes and even wolves. He glanced down at Judy and wondered if it was true what Wolford had told him what it did to a rabbit's libido?

"Fie, he is nay my boyfriend!" Aideen snapped back. Her voice was slightly slurred and she put a steadying paw on the wild fox's shoulder as she whispered to him. He didn't answer but smiled at her as he slipped his arm around her waist to keep her steady. She fell against him and her paw hesitated when she felt his soft chest fur. Embarrassed, she quickly pulled it away. "Sorry, I feel...I mean fell...I fell against ye!"

The wild fox didn't understand her words because she did not speak old fox.

"This isn't good C...ca...arrots," Nick whispered as he gave her a stupid grin. "We need to get out of here…"

"Oh, my stars and garters! Judy groaned out as she looked around. She had heard one of the show vixens use that saying when they were back in the 1920s and she liked it. Nick had begun to tease her about always exclaiming, "Sweet cheese and crackers" and he was determined to teach her how to properly cuss. "I'm stuck in a building full of stoned savages."

There was a hiss of the flames as the elder put the fire out with a ladle of water. The white-colored smoke rose towards the roof and out of a small opening in the thatch.

Still feeling slightly giddy, Nick felt himself being pushed closer to the elder and Judy was shoved up against him. The wild fox was now talking to Aideen, who translated his words with a little giggle. "He said you two just need to sit down and do what you are told!"

Sitting down, Nick watched as the elder held up the box. There didn't seem to be a lid and it just seemed to be a solid black cube. The coyote began to chant a prayer as he held the box towards him and Judy.

Aideen watched with her mouth slightly open, engrossed in what was happening and the after-effects of the smoke. She slightly jumped as the wild fox leaned closer to her and excitedly whispered, "The elder is finally going to open the box!"

"How, for there is no lid?"

"For many generations, we have wondered what magical secrets it contained."

The elder sat the box down and firmly grasped both Nick and Judy's paws, slowing pulling them forward and then holding their paws to the top of the box. There was a great gasp from those watching as the box seemed to begin to magically dissolve and crumble, revealing two odd copper-colored bracelets inside.

"What are those?" Aideen whispered to the fox.

"I don't know?" the wild fox answered. He was frowning, his nose was also twitched and it was then that she realized that he was disappointed in what was revealed.

"You were expecting something else?" she whispered to him.

"After all those years of waiting, we thought…I thought…there was going to be something grander."

"Grander?"

"Hey!" Nick yipped when the elder seized a bracelet and clamped it upon his wrist. He did the same thing to Judy. Looking down at the odd-looking bracelet, he realized that it had fused itself into one piece and could not be removed no matter how hard he tried. "What the hell?"

Judy pulled at her bracelet too, but she couldn't remove it either. "Nick, what's going on?" she snapped as the elder grasped their wrists again and pulled them together.

The coyote barked, yipped, and howled as he held their paws up for all to see and the crowd excitedly began to shout, "Waah-i-ald! Waah-i-ald!"

Nick clawed at his bracelet as the crowd calmed down, but no matter how he twisted, pulled or yanked on it, the band would not come loose. The elder finally reached over and slapped the fox's paw and admonished him in yips and barks of his native coyote tongue.

The wild fox and Aideen moved closer to them and the wild fox listened to what the elder said, before translating it for Aideen and then she translated old fox into the common language for Nick and Judy.

"Generations ago the demigod "Waah-i-ald found our tribes after we fled from the wolf clans of the great western forests. He challenged their chief to combat and despite being much smaller, defeated him in battle as he called down thunder and lightning. Waah-i-ald spared the wolf after he made him promise to leave our tribes in peace and then he led us to this blessed place. Here he taught us to grow such food as we needed to live and prosper."

"So this Waah-i-ald was a fox?" Nick asked. Aideen translated his question for the other fox, who in turn asked the elder.

"Waah-i-ald is Waah-i-ald," was the only answer the aged coyote gave. "He is who he is and who he shall be. After several months of living with us, he had us bury this box. Our father's fathers raised the great stone with his image for us to remember his command."

"But he has long ears, does this make a rabbit?" Judy interjected. "Was he some type of rabbit?"

"Waah-i-ald is Waah-i-ald", was her answer.

"He made us promise to give the box to a fox who will come with a rabbit and today we have done so!"

Quickly the crowd gathered around the fox and the rabbit and at first Nick thought that they were only going to try to touch them, but suddenly he began to be picked up and pulled away from Judy. "Carrots!" he called out as he struggled to get way for the paws which held him.

"Fie!" Aideen snapped as he began to draw her knife, but the wild fox's paw tightened on her paw keeping her from drawing her weapon.

"They are only being taken to prepare for their marking ceremony," he said in the old tongue.

"Marking?"

"Yes, they are to be bound with one another for the sake of Waah-i-ald!"

"Wait, you mean they are going to be married? A fox cannot marry a rabbit! That is a sin against the gods!"

"Why would it be so? Our gods only smile upon love."

"I don't think we worship the same gods, the Church would object!"

"What is a church?"

"A place where there are the priests, bishops, and elders who teach us about the gods and their laws."

"What is a law?"

"Things you can and cannot do! Doesn't your tribe have any rules?"

"We do, but they are simple. Treat one another as you would be treated. Take care of each other as if he or she was your family because we are all family. Forgive each other. Those are just a few of the rules, there are a few more."

"Surely you have those who protect your rules! We have priests who judge and punish those who break the holy laws! They may make you pay alms for minor infractions or even have you burned at the stake for major ones."

"Burn someone alive? That is a terrible thing for anyone to do, what kinds of gods do you worship who would demand such an evil punishment?"

There was an angry bellow from outside and Aideen quickly exited the hut to see that the two bulls had drawn their swords and had pushed Judy behind them as they faced down a crowd of confused looking villagers.

"Hold thy sword!" she cried out as he held her paw up. "They mean yon bunny no evil."

"What do they want of us?" Nick yelled as he pulled himself free and ran to join Judy behind the two huge warriors.

"They mean to wed thee together," the vixen answered with a smirk.

"Marry me and Judy?" Nick almost yowled in surprise. Judy just looked surprised.

Sir Lionel however slammed his sword back into its sheath and broke out laughing.

"I figured that they were already lovers, the way that the fox looks at her and the scent she gives off sometimes when she looks at him!" one of the wolves snickered as he lowered his spear. "The priest won't like this.

"Nay, he shan't like this at all," Aideen giggled at the thought of what that pompous, blowhard's reaction would be about the marriage. She translated what was being said to the wild fox, who grew silent as he looked back at her and then the bulls before he answered in a concerned tone. "He sayth that he shan't allow the priest to burn them alive."

"I don't think Sir Cai would allow that either?" Sir Lionel added with a grin. "Still, can I have the fun of telling that sour puss the bad news?"

Nick found himself shoved into a hut full of female coyotes and foxes, who quickly grabbed him and began to pull off his dirty clothes. "Hey I need those!" he yelped as they tore at his underwear while he struggled to keep them on. There was a ripping sound as they came free and he saw several of them holding the cotton briefs up and looking at the material in wonder. "Oh come on, don't you have cotton?"

A few moments late he found himself being bodily hauled out of the hut and unceremoniously tossed into the pond with a splash. Several grandmotherly coyotes waded in after him and despite his objections, they used a soapy mixture to scrub his fur.

Judy could hear Nick's protests from outside of her hut and she too was trapped inside of a lodge full of female foxes and coyotes. They had pulled off her clothing and carefully placed them into a pile upon the floor and once they knew that Nick was finished in the pond, they bodily hauled her out of the hut and tossed her too into the water. She sniffed the soapy mixture that they were using to scrub her with, it smelled like an herbal combination of aloe and palmetto roots. After they finished rubbing her with the mixture, she was doused again with the cold water. She shook herself because they had no towels which she could use to dry herself off with as they pulled her back into the hut.

When she got back to the hut, Aideen had joined the females and was talking to a vixen in the old fox tongue. "Fie! I hath been trying to tell them that it is an offense to the gods for thee to marry the fox!" the vixen in the chain mail grumbled. "They sayth that it tis the will of their god Waah-i-ald that ye do so."

"Aideen, I have read many of the holy texts, such as the Book of the Lamb, and I have never read anything that would make such a marriage as a sin."

"Thou hast read the holy text?"

"Yes, haven't you?"

"Nay, the church forbids all but the high priests to read the text. We foxes are surely denied such an honor and even my brother, who is a bard and knows many tales, hath never placed a paw upon a holy book nor is he allowed to learn to read!"

"Surely books are available to those who can afford them?"

"Most of the sacred scrolls and books were taken away with the Legions and there are few who can still even read what is written in them anymore."

"So you just have to assume what your priest tells you is the truth, even if he has never read any of the ancient scrolls or books either?"

"He is learned, taught by others in the mysteries of the words of the gods which was passed on to him by others, who told others."

"You ever played the telephone game?"

"Nay, what tis a telleyfone?"

"Never mind, it is a game in which a whole bunch of your friends line up and you whisper to someone a message, who then whispers it to another. That mammal then tells another and the message keeps being whispered down the line. At the end of the line, you see how much of the original message has been altered."

"Why would thee do that?"

"The point is that the oral word is not as reliable as the written word."

"Oh...thou saith that the priest may have gotten the story wrong? Tis like I have heard stories sung by my brother that be slightly different from what other bards doth sing."

Judy blushed as several maidenly coyotes began to brush her fur with combs made from fish bones and anointed her with juniper oil. A wooden bowl of drink was pressed into her paw and she sipped it, it was very sweet and tasty, several of the younger foxes and coyotes were also drinking the concoction. "This is very refreshing," she called over to the Aideen, who was also enjoying the drink. "Can you ask them what it is made from?"

Aideen took another long sip and smacked her lips before she called over to one of the other vixens in the old tongue. The other fox smiled as she answered and the answer caused Aideen to suddenly spit out a muzzle full of the drink she had just sipped. "Fie! She saith that it tis an aphrodisiac to make thee more fertile!"

Judy looked down at the drink and sighed, it did taste good and besides Nick wouldn't take advantage of her tonight, this marriage was only a sham and not real…right? She took another gulp as the vixen in armor just stared at her with her muzzle open. "I was still thirsty," she said to her. "Besides, I'm a rabbit and Nick's a fox…what could happen, right?"

"If thee saith so," the vixen snickered back as she set her own bowl down.

Across the village, Nick was enjoying his second bowl of the drink, much to the amusement of the elderly she coyote who was bushing his tail. They had dressed him only in a loin cloth. He looked out of the lodge's door and saw that the sun was beginning to set and his stomach rumbled at the scent of cooked fish and vegetables. He was very hungry since his last meal was only a pawful of dried turkey jerky and some berries earlier that day.

"Smells like a feast!" he finally commented, but no one in the lodge understood what he was saying. Instead, they handed him another bowl of the sweet-tasting drink.

Sir Bors had sent the two wolves, along with a couple of coyote guides, back to their campsite by the sea with a message for Sir Cai that they would not be returning until sometime the next day. The spear wolves were not happy leaving a village full of female wolf-like coyotes, but Bors was concerned that they might overstep their hospitality if the two rouges remained.

A huge fire was started in the center of the camp as the coyotes and foxes sang and danced to the sounds of drums and reed flutes. Then it drew quite as the moon began to rise in the east and a single coyote stepped near the fire and lifted her muzzle towards the moon. Her song was lilting and almost mesmerizing, ending in a long howl in which the other coyotes joined. The foxes yowled and yipped with their muzzles also raised towards the moon.

Then there was silence as they led Nick out towards the center of the crowd, he was dressed only in a loin cloth and it was quite clear to Sir Bors that the fox was nervous. Then they began to lightly drum again and Judy entered, the rabbit doe was dressed in a short skirt made of reeds and wore a long cape made from red cardinal feathers. Since she was topless, she kept tugging to keep the cape tightly closed. Aideen was behind her and she had put on her helmet and looked like an ancient goddess in the firelight, the wild fox joined her and pulled her by the paw into the crowd.

"I think he likes you!" Sir Lionel whispered to the armored vixen. The look she gave him made him chuckle. "Yep and you like him too!"

The elder came out of the crowd and joined Nick and Judy, both were looking around in confusion.

"Should we try to make a run for it Carrots?" Nick whispered to her.

Judy shook her head no before she answered. "I don't know where we'd go? Let's just do what they say and then we'll think of something."

The elder took their paws and said something in Coyote, which they didn't understand and then he sprinkled them both with some herbs soaked in water. When he finished, the villagers howled, yowled, and sang.

"They are wedded," the wild fox whispered in Aideen's ear. She turned to look into his green eyes and felt uncomfortable, quickly looking away. She wondered what was in that drink as she looked at him again after she was sure that he wasn't looking her way. He was very handsome, in a rugged and naturalistic way. Sitting near her other side was Sir Lionel and the big bull began chuckling again. She looked up at him and he was grinning as he first looked at her and then the wild fox.

Judy and Nick were led to a plank where all kinds of food were laid out and Nick picked up a bowl of that sweet drink again. Judy began to warn him, but hesitated as she looked at him in the firelight. His reddish-orange fur had a healthy shine to it and she sighed as she looked at his bare chest, with the whitish fur which ran from under his muzzle and down past were the lion cloth covered.

After they ate, the two newly married lovers were pulled towards a small hut by the happy villagers and pushed inside. The hut was very spartan, with only their clothes neatly piled next to a reed mat that had been laid upon the ground. Nick picked up the broken watch and gave it a shake, before setting it down again. "So now what should we do, try to sneak away?" he asked as he looked back over at Judy. He stopped talking for a moment as he stared into her eyes, those beautiful amethyst eyes which were always so enchanting.

"Nick…" she began to say something, but too hesitated. She was still pulling the feathered cloak tight.

"Judy?"

"You do know that if we ever get back to our time, the doctors at the university will never let us be alone again?"

"Yep, I guess they won't…if we ever get back."

"We are married, at least by the villager's standards…"

"Husband and wife…" Nick began to agree, but he stopped in shock when Judy turned toward him and let the cloak drop into a pool of feathers at her feet.

"Come here husband," she whispered. He went over and took her into his arms.

That night, they did what all married couples do on their wedding night and sometime during their nocturnal activates, Judy's paw brushed the broken watch. She felt that strange feeling in her guts and a sight wave of sudden nausea, but she did not get sick. Instead, she was comforted by the feeling of the tod's weight upon her and his soft breathing near her ear, comforted that is until she opened her eyes. "Nick!" she called out to him. "I see stars!"

"Thanks, Fluff, I rather enjoyed that myself!" he huskily replied.

"No Nick! Look up, the hut is gone and I see stars above us!"

Nick rolled over and looked around, the village was gone. They must have time-traveled again. Everything was gone but the watch, which was in the grass next to Judy's paw.

"When are we?" Judy asked in a panicked manner. She sat up and tried to cover herself with her paws, their clothes were also gone.

"I would guess sometime in the far prehistoric past," Nick replied as he too sat up and grunted in pain for a moment before he looked up into the tree which hung over them.

"How do you know that?"

"Well my dear wife, for one thing there is a saber-toothed squirrel in the tree above us and he was so shocked with our arrival that he dropped his nuts on me."

* * *

**Literacy in the years after Rome's departure of** **Britannia, the Roman name for Britain, steadily declined and in just a few generations there was a shortage in clerks outside of the Church who could read and write for the nobility. This is one of the reasons why most of the writings about Arthur and the early British kings were not put to ink until almost a century later. The Church used stained glass windows or tapestries to tell biblical stories to the uneducated lay people. Storytelling and songs remained the primary means of telling oral traditions and the deeds of great warriors. All the kings and great chiefs employed bards, sometimes called a** **seanchaí. Some of the seanchaí** **made a living wandering from village to village, a tradition that survived into the first part of the last century in rural Ireland and Scotland. **


	14. Naked & Afraid

**Chapter 14: Naked & Afraid**

* * *

_"_**_Remember, there's always something cleverer than yourself."_**

Merlin in movie _Excalibur_

**Agent Minos finds out that there are complications with his assignment of the vixen type. Nick and Judy struggle to fend for themselves in the primitive past. **

* * *

**Present Day**

The aegean wildcat's ears flattened against the top of his head when he saw the crowd at the cottage. "What is everyone doing here?" he asked the officer who was driving the police vehicle.

"Well my dear Agent Minos, everyone wanted to see the prodigal son who has returned home," the officer snickered. "Oh, I also forgot to tell you that Nicolaus is getting married to little Maria too! It seems that her papa wants his little angel properly wedded before she goes off to the big city of Zootopia with you two."

"I wasn't planning to take anyone back with me, except for Nicolaus."

"Too bad, we have already made sure that she has a ticket on the same flight as you and Nicolaus. You should remember how headstrong the females from this village can be, there is no possible way that this vixen is going to let you take her tod anywhere without her."

"This will complicate matters…."

The officer pulled the car onto the side of the road and looked over at the cat in the black suit. "I've known you since you were a snotty-nosed teenager and you could never lie to me back then and you sure can't nowadays. I know that there is more than just that medical device stuck in Nicolaus's neck which brought you running over here in such a hurry after all these years," he said and when the cat tried to interrupt, the gendarme held his hoof up to silence him. "Now I understand that there is secrecy in our business sometimes, but there is more to why you are here then you are telling me."

"It's just that…" Minos could not finish his statement before the officer cut him off again.

"Nicolaus is having strange dreams about things which, as far as I can tell are real, but belong to this Officer Nick Wilde in Zootopia. Things like helping a rabbit by the name of Judy Hoops solve the savage animal outbreak in your city. These dreams are too vivid and match what I could find out in those reports which were available in our databases. They match too much to be more than just a coincidence."

"Still, I don't have clearance for Maria to travel with us."

"She is pregnant with his kits!"

"Shit, that does complicate matters."

"I'm sure that those doctors are going to be interested in that too!"

Minos stared down at the car's dashboard and sighed.

"Come on cat, we have a welcome home party and a wedding to attend," the gendarme laughed as he opened his car door. "Oh and no one else but Maria's family, the village priest, and our doctor knows about her condition, so please be discrete tonight. Even in a small little rural village like ours, some of us can keep secrets. "

* * *

**10,000 B.C.E.**

The fox and the rabbit huddled in the darkness under a large gnarly looking oak tree, they were naked and afraid. All around them, they could hear the sounds of movement in the heavy undergrowth and distant growls made them sit up and look around in trepidation. Nick softly cursed as he first wound and then desperately shook the broken watch, the cause of their precarious situation, he was trying to get it to take them somewhere else in time.

As the sun finally rose, they wandered around the area near the pond and found out that besides the strange-looking squirrel, they were alone and the squirrel was going to be of no help at all. All the gray-furred creature did was chitter at them in anger, while he ran from branch to branch.

"Water, check!…shelter… we need shelter…food…got to have something to eat…" Nick mumbled almost to himself as he paced around in a panic and counted down what he remembered from watching all those survival shows on the television. Yeah…shelter …"

"Nick, stop!" Judy finally snapped at him.

"I don't know what to do, Fluff! I now wished I hadn't burned my old scout manual after …" his voice petered out.

"Nick, I'm a farm girl," she said in that upbeat chipper tone, which she used when trying to make the best out of the worst. Reaching up, she grabbed his muzzle with both her paws and pulled his head down so she could give him a kiss. His arms drew her into his embrace and she sighed as she felt his fur against hers. "Now stop, we've other things to think about," she finally panted out. "I have a good idea of what we can eat, so let's figure out someplace we can shelter for the night and start a fire."

"We don't have any matches or a lighter, so how are we going to do that? Don't tell me you're going to rub two sticks together?"

"No, but there are stones in the hillside and our bracelets are made of some kind of metal, maybe we can get them to spark if we hit them together?"

"What about our shelter? We are going to need something safer than a lean-to. I think if any of my ancestors came to visit us, they won't see you as my lovely wife, but as their dinner."

"There are the brambles on the hillside and we can build a lean-to in there where it is safer. We could dig a warren, which is what my ancestors would do."

"With our bare paws?"

"Didn't foxes dig warrens too?"

"They were called dens, Fluff! A fox in a warren…please!"

"Okay, then we can just call it a den instead of a warren. Until we get one dug, I think we should get a ladder and sleep in the tree at night."

"I'll just run over to Wallaby-Mart and buy us one." Nick sarcastically replied and then he snapped two of his right paw's digits. "Oh wait, I left my credit card at the university in the twenty-first Century!"

"I'll show you how to lash one together, goofball!"

"Oh, you farm girls!"

"Let's see if we can find something for breakfast."

Nick scooped her up and she giggled as he carried her towards a mossy spot by the side of the pool of water. "I've got a better idea!" he huskily said before he kissed her.

Breakfast was late that morning.

Judy found a patch of wild blueberries, they were small but tasty, and some edible weeds for them to munch on as they looked into the bramble patch. He admired the way she slipped into the thorny wall of vines and slowly pushed an opening through which he could also fit. The ground was black and rich, so digging wasn't too hard. But unlike their ancestors, they were not used to using their paws to dig, and soon they figured out that a flat stone was more effective, plus it gave them less wear and tear on their now sore paws.

The fire didn't work out. Whatever type of metal the bracelets were made of did not spark when scrapped against any of the stones they found. So, they spent the first of many miserable nights huddled high up in the branches of the old oak.

It took them several days of hard work to finally build a small lean-to in a depression that they had dug amongst the brambles. As luck would have it they found several shards of flint and even some stones which Nick at first thought was gold, but it sparked when the fox hit the stone against the flint. After much trial and error, along with several pawfuls of Nick's shedding fur and ground-up leaves, they finally made a fire. As the fox merrily gathered wood, Judy looked back at the hole that they dug and wondered why both types of stones were found in such a convenient location nearby? Especially in the ground which she knew from her farming days, should not contain either type of stone. It was then that she realized that the brambles were planted as if they were almost evenly spaced. That was strange, very strange.

After a few days, they had piled enough stones and fallen wood to make some sturdy walls and had cut down bundles of ferns to make a somewhat watertight roof, thankfully they were finished just as the rains came. In the darkness, they turned their little home into a honeymoon love nest. After all, there was nothing else to do after sunset, so they snuggled together in their safe little den which was hidden in the sharp thorny brambles. On several nights, they could hear something prowling around outside, but whatever it did not try to bypass the fire that guarded the entry into their thorny patch.

Nick had also figured out how to catch fish with a sharpened stick, but he would eat the raw tender flesh away from Judy's sight and it sated his natural craving for meat. He was worried about her, they had been there for about four weeks and although he ate the same things she did, she had started getting sick and was still tired in the mornings.

A was about a week after she began to get sick when she leaned against the oak tree and looked over at her husband as he sat there trying to get two rocks to spark. "Nick!" she finally cried out and he glanced over at her. "I think I know why I've been getting sick? I think I'm pregnant!"

"That's impossible, you know that Fluff…" he began to scoff, but then he realized that she might be right. "A fox and a rabbit can't…"

"Maybe it was something in that drink that they gave us on our wedding day? We both drank a lot of it and then we time traveled just as you…well you know!"

"Still, that can't…can it?"

"Think Nick…everyone knows that coyotes and foxes can't produce offspring either, but there were many of the coyotes who had reddish fur and some of the foxes had coyote looking features."

Impossible or not, Judy was indeed pregnant and it was quite evident within the many days which followed. Her hunger increased and she even had carnivore like cravings for grilled worms and other small crunchy bugs. Soon the fox found that he had to wander further and further away from the little campsite to find food. He went off early one morning with a basket that they had weaved from grass and a sharpened long spear-like stick.

Nick was well over a mile from their campsite and the safety of the briar patch when he heard rustling in the tall grass behind him. Something was stealthily moving his direction. He stopped and sniffed, cursing the fact that he must reek of wood smoke despite his attempts to bath in the cold water of the pond. Glancing around, he saw a tree and wondered if he could climb up into it fast enough and high enough to hide. His nose then picked up an odd scent and he froze, gripping his spear tightly. Whatever it was had now crouched and he knew from his long-dormant predatory instincts that it was ready to pounce.

There was a grunt and a yell as three rabbits...well not quite rabbits because they had saber-tooth teeth and small deer-like horns upon their heads…leaped out of the underbrush and brandished stone-tipped spears at him. "Hey, I remember seeing you guys at the museum!" Nick yelled in surprise. "You must be Judy's ancestors! I sure am glad to see you…" One of the rabbit-looking creatures stabbed at him with his spear, causing the fox to almost trip as he leaped backward. "Now wait a minute, I come in peace!" Nick yelled as he parried another spear with his pointy stick. "Aww come on now!"

Another of the rabbits said something to the others in a series of grunts and squeaks and Nick looked up just in time to see that a spear had to been hurdled straight at him, he panicked and tried to bring his arms up to block it but he knew it was too late. Suddenly there was a crackling noise and the stone-tipped weapon bounced off of something in front of him. The rabbit-like beasts all stumbled back in shock while they watched as the fox seemed to be patting himself as if he expected to have been stabbed. Finally, the bravest of the three assailants hopped forward and thrust his spear at the fox with all his might. Once again there was a crackling noise and this time the stout spear shattered.

Nick had heard the wrist bracelet begin to hum when the rabbit thing attacked him and he felt something which seemed to shoot out in front of him to protect him from the deadly strike. There were electrical sparks where the spear hit whatever was in front of him now. "This thing has a force field!" he exclaimed out loud in a triumphal yell, at least he guessed it must be a force field. He grinned as he watched while his three assailants ran away. _But force fields are only science fiction,_ he thought to himself as he picked up his own spear, then he chuckled out loud as he shook his head and muttered, "But so is time travel!"

It was several hours later before he returned to their primitive home by the clear crystal blue pool of water. "Fluff, you won't believe what happened!" he panted out in excitement as he entered the clearing. Judy looked up at him from the water reeds she was weaving together to make another sleeping mat for their lean-to. "I was attacked by your family…I mean three rabbits with big teeth and horns on their heads!"

"Nick, are you okay?" she asked as she ran towards him. He had to smile because she definitely now had a small baby bump.

"I tried to tell them that I came in peace, but I don't think they liked me. They tried to kill me with their spears!"

"They must have been primitive jackalopes and they were probably just defending their territory from you, after all, you are a predator. Are you saying that you ran off three jackalopes with a pointy stick?" the rabbit skeptically asked.

"No! No! It was the bracelet, Judy! The bracelet has a force field and it kept them from stabbing me!"

"Nick, that doesn't make sense? How could this little metal band keep you from being stabbed?"

"Here…here!" he cried out as he picked up a rock. "Throw this at me!"

"Nick, I'm not going throw a stone at you!"

"Come on Carrots, I'll be okay. Don't you trust me?"

She threw the stone and he grunted in pain and disappointment as it hit him on the arm. "Try it again, but this time you need to throw it harder!"

"Nick!" she sighed. "I don't want to hurt you!"

"Come on, I'm ready this time," he said as he held his arms up like he did when he was trying earlier to block the spear. He grunted in pain again as the rock slammed into him. "I don't get it, this worked before?"

Judy shook her head and turned to go back to her work. Nick stood there for a few moments before he picked up a small stone. Above him, the squirrel chattered out a warning and he frowned up at it. "Look you, who brings you nuts or acorns every day? I know what I am doing." With that, he lobbed the stone right at his wife's back.

Judy felt the armband hum and then there was a crackling sound as the stone bounced off of the invisible shield behind her. "Nick!" she yelled as she turned around. "Did you just throw something at me?"

"See it works!"

"Still, you threw something at me!"

"Well, it bounced off of your force field. So, I was right." He ran to hug her but yelped when the shield zapped him. "Hey!"

"I guess it's still defending me from my big bad fox?" Judy snickered.

Nick slowly reached out and waved his paw in front of her. When he realized it was safe, he took her in his arms and hugged her. "Remind me not to get in a fight with you when you have that on your wrist," he chuckled.

"Sure Slick," she laughed as she gave him a soft punch in his arm.

"Hey that hurt!" he grumbled. "So much for my force field thingie!"

He sat down and leaned back against the tree, as she joined him and snuggled into his now much longer plush chest fur. Nick had always been lean and was somewhat scrawny before he went to the Police Academy, where he did bulk up some, but now he was lean in a more muscular primal manner. Judy sighed as he lightly rubbed one of her ears while he picked up the broken watch again. He played with it in his other paw, held it up and looked it over.

High in the tree, the squirrel dropped his acorn in surprise when the fox and the rabbit just disappeared.

Nick fell backward because the tree was no longer there, and Judy leaned over with a groan, she was suddenly nauseous. They looked around and realized they were back inside the village hut and the red-feathered cape, which she once worn, was laying at the end of the sleeping mat. Judy's ears flicked when she heard a vixen's voice calling out to them. "Awaken yon sleepy heads, thy night of bliss tis over and tis time to return to the boat!"

"Nick, we're back and it's the morning after our wedding!" Judy hissed to the fox. We've been gone for months, but the watch returned us back almost to the moment when we left. Her ears drooped as she put her paw upon the small bulge in her belly. "How are we going to explain this?"

* * *

**Nick and Judy found both flint and fool's gold or Pyrite. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen at Leiden University in the Netherlands theorizes that Neanderthals were able to start fires using such stone tools.**

**There is no such creature as a saber-toothed squirrel, but maybe **_**QueenBookDragon **_**and **_**Cimar of Turalis WildeHopps**_** are right and he is related to Scrat from the **_**Ice Age**_** movies? However, paleontologists in Argentina found a skull belonging a saber-toothed squirrel-like mammal they named **_**Cronopio dentiacutus**_**...hmmm! **

**Yep, the jackalopes were defending their territory from the wolf looking fox. We all know that Jackalopes do exist, after all the town of Douglas, Wyoming, has declared itself to be the Jackalope capital of America. According to the town's legend, the first jackalope was spotted there around 1829 and so they built a large statue of a jackalope in the town center to commemorate the elusive beast. You can even get a permit to legally hunt them on the 31st day of June. **


	15. Winds of War

**Chapter 15: Winds of War **

* * *

_"_**_Better is peace than ever war."_**  
Sir Thomas Mallory, Le Morte d'Arthur

**War breaks out in the Old North as king marches against king and the foxes go into battle. **

* * *

**489.**

It had been several days since he fled Caer Camlann and back to his own kingdom, but time was of the essence and now King Alderon stood next to a fire in his army's campsite. In the distance, another village was smoldering as his warriors marched westward across his kingdom's borders and into the mountains of the Wolf King. "Damn those red devils!" he muttered in an agitated tone as he listened to an officer's report on another raid by the foxes against his supply train.

Drawing his short sword, he held it up and admired it by the firelight. It was a brutal weapon designed by the Legionnaires for close in fighting. They called it a gladius and it was used more for stabbing and thrusting than for hacking, either way, it was effective. He had organized his household warriors in a manner that roughly mimicked the units of the dreaded Legions. Although his rams wore chain mail, they were equipped with long rectangular shields, spears, and short swords. The Ram King had tried to make his warriors look similar to what he thought that the Legionnaires, which he so admired, would appear. "Enough!" he finally commanded. "Send two more centuriae of our goats to hunt down these raiders."

"What about the prisoners?" the officer asked.

Aldroen looked over at the two vixens that huddled in the darkness and one had her arms wrapped protectively around a young tod. He held his sword up again and watched it glisten in the firelight before he slammed it back in its sheath.

"Send them home!"

"Home, my Caesar?"

"At least send their heads home on the end of our spears."

"Yes my Caesar," the officer bowed and held his hoof over his heart in a salute.

The Ram King turned his back to the officer and walked towards his large tent. He didn't even miss a step when he heard the one vixen's pleading and then her blood-curdling scream.

Then there was silence in the camp.

"Yes, I will be Caesar over this island," he chuckled to himself. He loved being called that name and like the ancient rulers of old, he wanted to be a Caesar.

* * *

**489**

Bleddyn ap Llwyd laid still in the bracken and watched as the camp of goats prepared for the evening. Hidden next to him in the tall ferns, the body of their dead sentry stared up unseeingly at the clouds which covered the moon. Thunder boomed in the distance, sending the goats in the camp scurrying to set up their canvas shelters over their bedrolls. The hidden red fox knew that the goats and their ram officers were at a disadvantage in the darkness of the night, they were daytime mammals who were mostly night blind. The night was the predator's hereditary realm and he had no problem seeing around him, although his nose also caught the faint scents of the other foxes that waited motionless in the shadows.

He gripped his spear and tensed up while he watched as a majority of the goats begin to strip off their mail coats and prepare for bed. Unlike his enemy, he had no armor, but instead wore a cheap green handwoven linen tunic and a green and black woolen tartan cape. He had pulled the cape over his head, hiding his reddish-orange and cream fur. Like his enemy, he also had a spear, a long knife, and a small round shield.

From the corner of his eye, he saw his chieftain move slowly towards the camp. The older fox was stalking ever closer towards the unsuspecting goats and his ears flicked when he heard a soft grunt of another sentry's throat being cut, he fought down the urge to growl. Slowly and carefully, he also crept forward. He knew that they had to strike fast because they were outnumbered three to one.

A large ram officer stood up in front of the campfire while he drained his cup of cheap vinegar wine and then stretched his arms before he removed his helmet and rubbed his horns. Suddenly, there was a pain in the officer's back and he looked down to see that the iron tip of spear had been driven through his chest. He was dead by the time the fox pulled out his spear from the still twitching body.

With yowls, growls, and snarls, the foxes charged into the now disorganized camp. Bleddyn drove his spear into the throat of a surprised looking goat and then pulled his blood-soaked weapon out of the dying soldier's neck, before taking aim at another goat who was stumbling towards his shield. The clansmammal's throw caught the goat in his stomach and he baahed in pain as he doubled over. Seizing the spear, Bleddyn pulled it upward through the unarmored warrior's stomach, gutting the poor goat's belly wide open. His wounded foe fell onto the ground with his bloody entrails spilling onto his knees. The fox left him there to slowly die in his own foul waste, but the goat's blood had splattered the fox in his face and he licked it from his muzzle. He was surprised at how good the irony red globs tasted and fought the primal predatory urge to turn and bite into the dying goat.

A spear flashed out and the fox lifted his shield just in time to block the thrust, but before Bleddyn could strike back, a gray blur hopped past him. The wild-looking, half-naked hare drove a large bear sized knife into the spear goat's back and then dove to face another foe, who he quickly slew. By the firelight, Bleddyn could see that it was the once honored knight Sir Gaheris, the son of King Cyflym, and the one who was now called the Mad Monk. The hare had sworn to exact his revenge against King Aldroen for allowing the raider An Sionnach safe passage into his father's kingdom and for the murder of his brother Gareth. The fox's eyes widened in surprise because the huge sword-like knife was none other than Arthur's great knife Carwenna, which had once been carried by the hare's best friend, a fox knight named Sir Bedivere. Every fox knew the tragic tale about the valiant Sir Bedivere and his fair Arawen.

The slaughter was complete, the foxes and their hare ally left none of the goats or rams alive. After stripping the bodies of their armor and weapons, they beheaded the slain warriors and piled their heads in a gristly pyramid for the Ram King's scouts to find. Then they burned the remainder of the bodies with the camp and supplies.

Hours later Bleddyn washed his face in a stream of cold mountain water, trying to get the tangy blood from his fur. He was ashamed that he almost gave into the savage urge to kill with his fangs and claws, to tear out his foe's throat with a snarl. He had heard of wolves going berserk like that in battle and knew it was a fine line that he could never allow himself to cross. The bards called it the "Red Rage", the primal hunter's urge to savage a foe and consume its flesh. The Church considered the consumption of another mammals flesh as a high sin against the gods, a sin that was punished by death and damnation.

Wearily the fox sat down in the heather and panted, he could see that several of his clanmammals had fallen during the night's deadly fury. He then sighed deeply as he ran his paws over his tired eyes and leaned back to watch those around him. Gaheris stood not too far away, the hare too was drenched in blood and he was standing in the small stream as he rubbed his fur with bracken in an effort to work the sticky blood from his fur. After he was somewhat clean, the knight pulled an oversized tunic over his thin wiry body. It was apparent that he had to slice several feet of material from the bottom, for the waist hung way too far down, but it did cover his nakedness. "Sharpen your spearhead, fox!" the Mad Monk called over to him. "You know our orders from good King Maelgwn. We are to keep harassing Aldroen's supply line and delay his advance long enough for Arthur to arrive with reinforcements. There are many more of his troops that we will need to kill before this is over."

Bleddyn nodded and reached for his spear and a course fieldstone. He knew that Gaheris was right and there were plenty more on both sides who will die before this war ended.

* * *

**489**

The brisk tread of the war horse's iron-shod hoofs echoed down the monastery's hallway as he marched across the marbled floors towards the bishop's private office. Sir Sagramor held his iron helmet under his arm and tried not to frown when one of the two armor-clad lions, belonging to the bishop's personal bodyguards, opened the gold leaf guided oversized door to allow him into the office. The handsome stallion entered and stood at attention before the massive polished dark wood desk. A large fat ram in a red silk robe briefly glanced up as he entered before he returned to shuffling the stacks of papers on the table in front of him. Finally, after a few minutes of seemingly ignoring the officer, the bishop put one hoof upon the heavy gold amulet he wore on a gold chain around his neck and smiled as he stated, "I have received disturbing reports that you and your soldiers are intending to march north."

"Yes your Excellency, I have received what I consider creditable intelligence that the Children of Anubis are on the move and leaving the city…"

"The Perfect," the bishop interjected. "The Perfect says that he needs you and your troops to help protect the city from the barbarians who have gathered in the south. The kings of the southern kingdoms have lost their lands, surely a divine punishment by the gods for their many sins. Ælle has seized Anderitum and killed all in the fortress, now we cannot afford him an opportunity to march north against the city."

"My orders are not to guard Londinium, but to hunt down and bring to justice the heathen jackals. So far we have been hampered by the city leaders in effectively searching for them with the…"

"Ah yes, so you have told me several times."

"Now that they have left their hidden places within the city itself…"

"Your troops are needed here!" the bishop cut him off with a flick of his hoof. "Stand down!"

Sir Sagramor looked around at the opulent furnishing within the room, his soldiers had not been paid their full salaries for many months and he was short on money after feeding them with his own merger funds. All around him were fine silks and a delicate glass wine cup sat on the table near the bishop's hoof. It was real glass, a rarity on the island nowadays and itself worth more than his week's wage. Gold and silver religious icons and statues were scattered throughout the room. The Church pleaded poverty while it hoarded its riches within its grand cathedrals and stout monasteries.

"Did you not understand me centurion?" the bishop snapped in anger when he saw that the stallion had not moved. "I said that you and your troops are needed here, protecting this church and the city."

"I'm sorry your grace, but first I am a knight and not a centurion. Second, I cannot comply with your orders," the war stallion finally answered. "I have a written writ from the Pope himself ordering me to hunt down and bring justice against the Children of Anubis on this island."

"How dare you! I know exactly who your damned father was and he lost his kingdom to the barbarians!"

"The Pope made me swear a vow to finish this mission and so I must fulfill that vow before my soldiers and I are released for further duty. As for my father, he and his soldiers battled the heathen tribes from the Great Steppes for years without the Church's aid. He died as a martyr of the faith."

"I'll have you arrested!" the fat ram yelled as he stood up and slammed his hoof down in anger upon the desk. The two lions by the door tensed up and reached for their swords.

"Again, we are under the direct command of the Pope and to countermand his wishes is an offense against the gods. It would cause me to risk excommunication and the damnation of not only my soul but those of my warriors."

With a huff, the bishop sat down on his padded throne-like chair. Then he gave a thin smile as he picked up a sheet of paper and pretended to look it over while he thought. After a few tense minutes, he finally gave a shooing motion. "Very well, you are dismissed with my blessing to fulfill your duty. But you and your soldiers are to report back to me when you have finished your mission."

Sir Sagramor wanted to laugh when he realized that the corrupt lazy idiot in the red robe obviously couldn't read. The ram bishop was holding the paper he held in his hoof upside down! Slowly the knight bowed but did not approach the bishop to kiss his ring. Instead, he wheeled around and marched out of the door, past the lions who only watched.

After the stallion had left, the bishop quickly picked up a bell and rang it, summoning a skinny monk in a black robe. A young rabbit entered and looked up with anticipation at the bishop. "I have a message for King Aldroen's ears only and if you tell anyone else, I'll see that you are damn to hell itself," he warned the monk. The rabbit nodded as he listened and repeated the coded message back to the "saintly" bishop before he fervently kissed his ring.

* * *

**A centuria (plural centuriae) is a Roman military formation and original was comprised of 100 men led by a centurion. By the 4th Century, the unit had shrunk in size to 80 soldiers. Sir Sagramor is a higher ranking leader who is acting as a centurion for his under-strength centuria assigned to a special mission. **

**Caesar was the title that Roman Emperors had adopted to invoke the legendary myth of the great Julius Caesar. **

**Bede records in ****_The Ecclesiastical History of the English_****_ People_**,** that Ælle was one of the Anglo-Saxon kings who conquered the portion of Great Briton which became Sussex. **

_**"491: Here Ælle and Cissa besieged Andredes cester, and killed all who lived in there; there was not even one Briton left there."**_**_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle._**** This was also thought to be the Roman fortress of Anderitum near Pevensey. For the story's sake, I've moved this event a few years back in time. **


	16. Mercy

**Chapter 16: Mercy **

* * *

**_The king stablished all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no world's goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost._**  
The Pentecostal Oath from Sir Thomas Malory's _Le Morte d'Arthur_, Book III, Chapter XV

**Agent Minos is at the mercy of an airline. A ram lord in the past is at the mercy of his foes. **

* * *

**Present Day **

Agent Minos had the driver make a screeching stop at a roadside vendor on their way to the airport so he could purchase one of his favorite breakfast snack foods. The Koulouri Thessalonikis was a sesame seed coated bread ring which he loved to dip in wild berry jam and it had always been one of his favorite treats ever since he was a kitten. His brothers used to tease him because they preferred Loukoumades or deep-fried dough balls, which were drenched in honey and sprinkled with walnuts, but he always wanted the crunchy and chewy bread rings instead.

"Agent, we had best get moving!" the vixen named Maria in the backseat of the police car called out as he chewed his delicacy. "I understand the lines through security can be rather long this time of year."

"You won't have to worry about that little one," the gendarme driving the car chuckled. "Agent Minos, Nicolaus, and you all have a pass to go straight to the airplane. "You are all getting the VIP treatment!"

"Only if you want to consider flying overseas stuck in standard commercial seating as being the VIP treatment?" Minos called back after he swallowed his last bite.

"You've gotten spoiled since you went to the big city," the officer laughed again as the smaller cat climbed back into his seat. "I'll bet you flew First Class over here!"

"Of course I did! I had to pay for the upgrade from my own funds, but it is worth it!"

"This time you must fly home with the rest of the proletariat, what a shame."

"I'm not rich."

"I'm quite sure that your new career doesn't earn you as much money as your old smuggling job."

"Alas, it does not, but I do get healthcare and other benefits. Plus, an honest paycheck keeps me out of jail."

"I hope you plan to return and visit us again. No matter what you think, this is still your homeland," the gendarme chuckled as he pulled the police car up to the airport terminal. "And as for you Nicolaus, I do hope that you will find what you are looking for in that godforsaken city and return home quickly with dear Maria."

"I will return," Nicolaus replied as he helped his wife out of the car. "For once a mammal has been to paradise, it sours any hope of finding its likes elsewhere."

"Ah, that silvery fox tongue!" the gendarme laughed as he waved goodbye to the travelers.

Minos watched as the vixen took the tod's paw and with both anticipation and excitement, they began their way into the terminal. The agent felt a little guilty when he watched her with her new husband, he had no idea what laid in store for the happy couple at the end of the flight. Maria also did not get her traditional week-long wedding ceremony, something which was important to a Cadmean vixen. Instead, her wedding was rather rushed and held within her cottage and not at the church in the village square. She did not have a fine silk white dress but was married in a simple blue dress. Thankfully there was a lot of food, singing and dancing, both traditional and modern, and the village ladies had carefully prepared the sacred Krevati or the bridal bed, an important traditional start to any marriage. Unfortunately, the newly wedded couple was only able to share the bed for a few hours before they had to leave to catch their flight.

Now they stood close together with paws entwined as they marveled at the airport. Minos watched as they looked out the window at all the airplanes coming and going. The cat in the black suit wondered if the vixen had ever seen an airplane up close or if Nicolaus had either and if he had in the past, he certainly did not seem to remember having done so.

"We need to get going," the cat finally called out to the happy couple. They followed him down the causeway towards the security guards where he flashed his badge and papers. The uniformed wolf briefly waved them past the checkpoint and as Maria and Nicolaus walked by, he sniffed and grinned. "Newlyweds!" he chuckled to the young goat in a matching uniform that standing near him as he knowingly touched his nose.

When they boarded the aircraft, Agent Minos was in for another surprise. The co-pilot personally escorted the two foxes to a couple of seats in First Class. When the cat objected, the flight officer grinned and pulled him aside. "The gendarme, who upgraded these tickets, said that a dashing cat in a black suit might just object. I was told to remind him that he still may have a few rather old, but still active outstanding arrest warrants for a certain smuggler in his files. I hope that makes sense to you agent?"

"Your point is taken," Minos grumbled as he made his way towards the back of the airplane. He frowned even more as Nicolaus took the glass of Champagne he was offered and Maria declined hers. "I hope the coffee is at least strong and hot," he grumbled.

The airline showed the cat no mercy because it was not.

* * *

**489**

Sir Ennius watched as his levy of rams and goats marched down the trail, the landowner was one of the lesser titled members of the House of Defaid. His small force of untrained farmers would be of little value against an army, but he had been summoned and King Aldroen himself had ordered him to hunt down one of the many groups of lightly armed foxes that were harassing the army's rear. His was a pitiful force which consisted of only three heavily armed rams and a couple of dozen goats. He had also recruited another dozen other mammals from his lands, including ironically enough two red fox brothers.

"I still think that the king is making a mistake!" he grumbled to his cousin. "For over a generation, the Seven Houses have safely held the Old North from intrusions by the barbarians on the other side of the wall and the sea boars along the coast."

"King Aldroen is going to do something that hasn't been done since the Legionnaires left and that is to unify this island," his cousin haughtily replied. "Those foxes and wolves are useless as farmers…"

"But the rabbits and hares, they are good farmers and our neighbors. Yet our king let those raiders slip through our lands and attack them, they would have been slaughtered if Arthur's warriors had not arrived. It was a fox knight who saved their warren, was it not?"

"A fox who latter raped the Hare King's daughter!"

"Tis not what I heard," the third ram interjected. Sir Ennius looked over his shoulder at his aged uncle. The grizzled old farmer was struggling to keep up with the others and slowing them all down. "I heard that they fellth in love and…"

"Fie, he raped her!" his cousin laughed. "Took her into a shed and tore her tunic…"

"It doesn't matter now does it?" Sir Ennius cut off the other ram's crude comments. "He died for whatever he had done and was killed by her vengeful brother Sir Gaheris."

"The Mad Monk!" his cousin laughed out. "As if a mere hare could really ever have the taste for true battle! I'd wager he hid in the bushes and watched the whole sorted affair."

"Taste for battle, like thee hast?' his uncle chuckled. "Thou art but a dirt farmer and a poor one at that."

Wearily they trudged down a mountainous trail, with bracken and brambles flanking each side of the dirt path, suddenly the two foxes halted and sniffed. "Ambush…" one of them began to call out as spears flashed through the air. Half his force went down under the first volley and he felt his elderly uncle shove him aside just as a yowling fox drove an iron-tipped spear into the ram's shield. Before he could even draw his sword, the battle was almost over and he raised his hoofs in the air to surrender as he was confronted by a pair of foxes.

"No prisoners!" he heard a hare in an ill-fitting tunic yell at the foxes.

"Nay milord," a shout came and the ram looked over to see one of his own foxes keeling on the trail with several other foxes holding spear points to his throat. "Sir Ennius hath always been a true lord! He hath allowed us to stay on our land even after the king ordered it confiscated. A fairer master I hath never had before and he did nay seek to go to war, but hath no choice."

"No choice!" the rabbit snapped back in anger. "We all have choices, he should have stayed home."

Sir Ennius closed his eyes as he saw the hare draw his oversized knife while he walked towards him. Before the killing stroke could be made, he heard another voice object, "No Sir Gaheris, this is not justice!"

The ram opened his eyes in surprise and looked at the wild hare, this was the Mad Monk? Then he saw that it had been the fox who had killed his cousin who was doing the objecting. He glanced over at the other ram's body, his cousin's head had been half severed from his shoulders and the still dying body twitched and convulsed as it sprayed blood into the air. Finally, another fox drove his spear through the ram's chest and put an end to his convulsions. So much for his cousin's boasts about having a taste for true battle!

"Let go of my arm Bleddyn!" the hare snapped.

The fox named Bleddyn had grabbed the warrior's arm and was keeping the knife from striking. The fox stared down at the angry hare, "I am tired of killing for killing sake!" He then turned and faced another fox. "Cadoc, these are just farmers and not warriors, let them live!" the fox pleaded.

"Leave your armor and arms behind," the other fox commanded as he stepped between the angry hare and the ram. "Take your wounded and go home. Go back to farming and forget about this war. But remember ram lord that if I ever see you on the field of battle again, I will personally chop your head off and then burn down your homestead."

Ennius, along with the two foxes who came from his lands, took his uncle and the remaining pitiful survivors back home and all were very thankful for the mercy which they were given.

* * *

**The Pentecostal Oath from Sir Thomas Malory's** **_Le Morte d'Arthur_****, is from the translation I found online and not a victim of my creative spelling and grammar. **

**The Cadmean vixens are based upon the ancient Greek myth of the Cadmean Vixen. The legend says that the magical vixen could never be caught and after considering the people's plight, the magical hound Laelaps was sent to catch her. However, the hound could never catch the vixen and the fox could never elude the hound. Finally, the god Zeus looked down from Mount Olympus and observed the never-ending chase that was taking place and decided that he could not let it continue on the earth. He transformed both the fox and hound into constellations, Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (Cadmean Vixen). So tonight look up into the night sky and you can see them continue their chase in the heavens above. Legend or not, Nicolaus seems to have caught one or Maria had let herself be caught.**


	17. Dreams

**Chapter 17: Dreams **

* * *

"**_Where have you been these many years... are you just a dream Merlin?"_**

Arthur calling for Merlin in the movie _Excalibur_

**In the past, Arthur has a dream about an odd childhood friend. In the future, Nicolaus has a dream about Nick and Judy. Meanwhile, our dynamic duo has to face a nightmarish scenario. **

* * *

**489**

It had been a long time since Arthur had slept in such luxury and the cushions on the sleeping couch were almost too soft for him after having spent most of his nights on a pallet in the barracks or rolled up in a blanket tossed upon a bed of leaves or grass in the field. Earlier that day, the clan leaders had finally agreed to crown Mordred as their king and that was followed by a lengthy council of war. The bears would divide into three forces, a home guard to protect their lands from any raids or intrusions, a larger force would be led by Mordred against the sea boars that were ravaging the lands of King Cyflym, and another smaller group was to join Arthur's war band as he moved his warriors against the Ram King.

Weary of all the political maneuvering, Arthur returned with his troops to Sir Cai's steading for the evening, it was a large walled farm built in what was once a Legion's winter hibernation camp. It was also where he had grown up under the protection of Cai's father Sir Ector. Tonight he slept in his old room in the keep's tower, a place where he felt safe while surrounded by the memories of his childhood's simpler times. He slept peacefully until his ears flicked when he heard a strange sound, a rustling noise was coming from within the Great Hall next door. Drawing his sword Caliburn, he padded across the courtyard and pushed open the door to look around. There was a ripping sound and he fell back in terror at what he saw. Hanging on the wall was his father's banner called the Y Ddraig Aur or the golden dragon and it seemed to have come alive! Before his very eyes, the dragon stitched upon the banner began tearing itself from the cloth and with angry eyes, it glared down upon him.

"You dare sleep while the land burns?" the beast roared out as it hung down and stared at him with fiery eyes. Its teeth were flashing as it waved its huge claws at him and he could feel the wind caused by its massive wings, which beat the air above him. "The land has no king and you are a king with no land! You are no longer Wart, you are Arthur Pendragon!"

"Wart! I'm Wart, what's your name?" Arthur suddenly found himself once again a scrawny eight-year-old bear cub in a dirty tunic. He was calling over to a fox kit that was sitting on the banks of the farm's pond. The reddish furred kit was wearing an odd-looking oversized helmet, one with a great big red brush shaped plume on top of it. "Nice helmet, where did you get it?"

"From another kit who his daddy's soldiers called Little Boot, but he was mean to everyone and so I took it from him," the fox answered. "I think it is too big for my head, but I like it!" As Arthur drew closer he noticed that the fox's feet were large and strange, almost rabbit-like. "My name is Waah…Well, you can call me Wally."

"You stole his helmet?"

"He won't miss it, he's dead now anyway. Why do they call you Wart?"

"My cousin Cai calls me that, he's much older and training to be a knight. I wanted to be his squire, but he says that I am about as useless as a wart on his bum. Everyone calls me that now, even Sir Ector…everyone but Merlin."

"This Merlin friend of yours, what does he call you?"

"Arthur, that's my real name."

"Then I too will call you Arthur!"

"How's the fishing?"

"There's a huge pike in there, but he's a sneaky feller. I'm sure glad that I'm not another fish swimming in that pond." The kit pushed his fancy helmet off his muzzle and back over his forehead as the bear cub came and sat down next to him. Arthur leaned over and peered into the water, but the only thing he was his own reflection in the calm pool.

"I've got another pole over there, why don't you give it a try?"

Arthur nodded to his smaller companion as he picked up the cane pole and baited the hook. "I don't get much time to fish, my Uncle Ector says that free paws are the devil's playground and so he always finds me chores to do when I not taking my lessons from Merlin."

"Too bad, but he's wrong. You should always find time for fun, don't you know the old saying that goes all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

"Merlin says that hard work pays off."

"They also say the foxes are red because they are made by the devil! Do I look like the devil?"

The bear cub tensed up, he had heard the stories of demons that lured travelers into pools of water like this. They would drown them and then eat their souls. He looked at the strange fox's foot paws again and wondered.

"I'm not a kelpie or a devil, I'm just a kit like you," his companion snickered.

"I didn't say you were, besides don't kelpies look like horses?"

"They're supposed to be sticky too, kind of like a tar baby."

"What's a tar baby?"

"Forget it…hey, you've got a nibble!"

For several more weeks, he would run to the pond after he finished his chores and he would play games with his new friend. The fox with the odd feet always kept that helmet on and never took it off. Then one day his friend had a strange object that looked like a bow on a stick. "What's this?" Arthur asked as he picked up the object. I was almost too large for his new friend to handle.

"It belongs to another friend of mine named Walt Tell. His dad once used it to shoot an apple off his head with an arrow."

"Why did his dad do that? That sounds very dangerous, what would have happened if he missed?"

"Well he didn't miss and he had to because he was ordered to do so by some duke or lord of sumtin'. His daddy was told that if he didn't do it, then they'd both die."

"That was mean of the duke!"

"Yeah, the noble-born can be that way! They are always pushing other folks around and getting what they want. You know that might makes right and all that stuff."

"Merlin says that right makes right."

"Sure it does, just ask any shrew, hedgehog…or even a squirrel. Small animals always have to do what the bigger ones tell them to do, who's going to stop them?"

"I will when I get bigger!"

"Sure you will Mister I-just-wanna-be-Cai's-squire-when-I-grow-up."

"Being a squire is a noble profession!"

"Yeah, just ask any squire. They are always getting orders…spit shine my chain mail…sharpen my sword…go fetch my…."

"That's enough! I get the point, so what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"Free to do what I want and not be told what to do by anyone, especially some bossy noble. Wouldn't it be nice if the great lords remembered that they should serve those they rule and not the other way around?"

"That's what Merlin says."

"Here let me show you how this works!" He put both of his oversized foot paws into a metal hoop at the end of the stick and pulled at the bowstring until it hooked on a latch stuck through the wooden stick. The bow was bent and then after picking up a small looking arrow, he put it in a grove. Satisfied, he placed the back of the stick over his shoulder and pointed it at a tree before he pushed up a lever under the stick. There was a twang and the arrow went deep into the tree's trunk.

"That was something, can I try?" Arthur excitedly asked. The fox grinned and handed him the bow like thing. He followed his friend's instructions and shot the arrow, which he was told was a bolt, at the tree. "Can I try it again?"

They spent the afternoon playing with what his friend called a crossbow. Finally, they found an old rusty helmet and sat it on a pole. Arthur fired a heavier steel-tipped bolt and saw that it punched right into the iron. "This is something!" he called out to his friend.

That night, he asked Sir Ector if he had ever heard of anything like the crossbow. The elderly bear thought for a few minutes and then said it sounded like a small version of a hare's ballista.

The next day Cai and some of his teenage bullies followed him down the pond and when Gally showed up they chased him and laughed at his big feet. The fox bound away into the woods and he never saw him again.

Arthur was awoken from his memories, from his dream, by a soft knock on his door. One of his retainers called out to him from the doorway, "Milord, tis time to dress for your morning meal. The gear hath been packed and you said we were to march at sunrise."

Arthur ran his paws through his face fur and deeply sighed. Then he remembered his dream and ran to the fire pit and snatched up a lump of coal. "Get me the blacksmith!" he commanded as he knelt on the stone tile floor and began to trace out what he remembered that the crossbow looked like. "Yes, a weapon that will let any smaller animal be a danger to any mail-clad boar or ram," he excitedly muttered to himself.

* * *

**Present Day**

Nicolaus awoke with a start, he realized that he had fallen asleep on the airplane and had another one of his strange dreams. There was a rabbit standing in front of him crying and he felt his heart torn in two at the sight of her despair.

"_Wait... Wait, listen... I-I know you'll never forgive me, and I don't blame you - I wouldn't forgive me either," _she called out and he stopped but didn't look back at her. _"I was ignorant and irresponsible and small-minded. But predators shouldn't suffer because of my mistakes. I have to fix this. But I can't do it without you. And after we're done, you can hate me, and... and that'll be fine, because I was a horrible friend, and I hurt you, and you... and you can walk away knowing that you were right all along - I really am just a dumb bunny." _

He pressed a button on a carrot-shaped pen that he held in his right paw_. "I really am just a dumb bunny…I really am just a dumb bunny,"_ it played back her voice.

He turned to face her and smiled,**_ "_**_Don't worry, Carrots. I'll let you erase it... in 48 hours. All right, get in here." She walked up and hugged him, while he patted her head and pulled her closer. "Okay, oh, you bunnies, you're so emotional. There we go, deep breaths. Are you, are you just trying to steal the pen? Is that what this is?" _She laughed while still sniffling and then swiped at the pen he was holding. _"You are standing on my tail, though... Off, off-off-off!" _

This time he didn't have the nightmare that usually followed such dreams. Instead, he felt Maria's head resting against his shoulder as she too slept. He sniffed her scent, so reassuring and wondered now if he was making a mistake going to Zootopia to seek out his past…what would happen if he didn't like what he found out?

Cramped in the back of the plane, Agent Minos squirmed as he tried to get comfortable. He had already taken a number of what his species called "cat naps" when you are resting but not quite asleep. He softly sighed as he felt the arm of the fat pig next to him brush against his again. At least the overly talkative swine was asleep and not running her mouth.

The cat's stomach growled again in hunger. Earlier when the flight crew was serving dinner, they had run out of either the tuna or beetle sandwiches. Instead, he opened his paper sack and was disappointed to find sprouts and mustard on rye toast, along with a small can of fruit in syrup. He was a feline and as a carnivore, he needed his meaty protein and not some salad on bread! His talkative neighbor, being an omnivore, was more than happy to consume his inedible meal.

Up in the plane's front, the two foxes in First Class had dinned on a fish they had never eaten before, called salmon, and it had a delectable caper sauce. It was also served with risotto and a side salad. For dessert, Maria chose a custard and Nick tried the fresh fruit compote.

Content that he was safe and with a full belly, Nicolaus snuggled closer to his wife and dreamt not of strange places or being drowned, but of his newly found home in the countryside.

* * *

489

While the other Nick was having pleasant dreams, life had become a nightmare for Judy. She and Nick had returned back…or in this case forward…in time to just a few hours after they had first left. It had been weeks for them as they were trapped in that primitive land and to top it off, she was also pregnant and showing!

Earlier that morning Aideen and Sir Bors had come to their little hut to awaken them in preparation for their return back to the campsite by the sea. After a few minutes of pounding, Nick finally opened the door and the vixen gasped at how long and surprisingly darker the tod's fur had grown. It was then that she saw Judy trying to now pull her now too tight sweatshirt over her belly.

"GODS you rabbits work fast!" the stunned bull standing next to the vixen bellowed in surprise.

"Tis witchcraft!" the vixen stuttered out. "Thou are pregnant? Thou canst be with child!"

Judy tried to explain, but a swarm of excited foxes and coyotes had rushed into the hut and they were trying to put their paws on her baby bump all at once. "Waah-i-ald!" they joyfully cried out and howled.

Aideen finally got to talk to one of the excited vixens in the old fox tongue and after listening to the barks, yips, and whines, she leaned heavily against the hut's wall.

"What did she say?" the big bull called out from outside.

"They doth claim…she saith…she…she doth claim that yon bunny be pregnant with their godling Waah-i-ald!" Aiden finally answered. "But that tis impossible!"

"But how…I mean, I know how…what I'm trying to say is that overnight she got that knocked up?"

"Aye…" was all the vixen could say.

"I'm going to let you three explain this to the priest when we get back to the camp," was all Sir Bors said as he walked away while shaking his huge horned head in disbelief.

It took several hours before Judy and Nick finally emerged from the hut. Judy was wearing Nick's oversized sweatshirt and the fox only had on his dirty sweatpants, his fur was still wet from bathing in the pond. "We've decided to stay here!" Nick firmly announced.

The problem was that the elder did not agree with Nick and Judy's plan. After many conversations between, the aged coyote, the wild fox, and Aideen, it was clear that they had to continue with the others on their mission to the cold icy northern realm of the great white bears and their ruler, the white wolf known as Balder.

"It seems that thy path lies with us now," Aideen sighed. "May the gods watch over all of us and forgive thee of thy sin."

"Love is not a sin!" Nick snarled out at her in anger, causing the vixen to flinch. "Your priest is wrong, what he taught you is wrong!"

"Tis the words of the gods!" she finally firmly replied as she placed her winged helmet between her ears. "The words of the gods…"

They both looked over and saw that the wild fox was standing there with a bundle over his shoulder and a flint tipped spear in his paw. She spoke to him in the old tongue and he answered with an amused grin. "Fie, thy unborn child hath a guardian. He saith that he shalt not leave thy side Judy until thy child is born."

Sir Lionel grinned as he nudged his brother Bors and whispered a bit too loudly, "I've seen the way he looks at Aideen and she looks at him. I'll bet by the end of this quest, that Judy might not be the only one pregnant."

The Vixen glared up at the larger bull, but everyone could tell she was slightly blushing.

* * *

**Legend has it that the Y Ddraig Aur or Golden Dragon banner was Uthar's banner and then was passed down to Arthur. The banner was last raised by Owain Glyndwr, the last native Welshman to hold the title "Prince of Wales."**

**Caligula (Little Boot) was the childhood nickname given to the infamous Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus by his father's soldiers during their campaign in Germania. Caligula was considered one of the cruelest and sadistic tyrants in history. His reign came to an end in the year 41 when he was murdered by his own bodyguards, the famous Praetorian Guard. **

**A kelpie is a shape-shifting water spirit that myths claim inhabited some lochs and rivers of Scotland. It would appear as a horse and lure its victims to pet them and then once stuck, carry them to their watery doom. They could also appear as a handsome man or a pretty young girl. **

**Wally Tell refers to the son of the legendary William Tell.** _"When Gessler heard of this, he became enraged, fearing that other men would also disobey him, and ordered William Tell's arrest. Hearing that this William Tell was a famous hunter, Gessler devised a cruel plan. He ordered Tell to shoot an apple atop the head of his young son, Walter." _The legend as told in _William Tell, Tax Rebel_ by Adam Young

**The use of crossbows by the Roman army is questionable, it didn't seem to be a weapon normally used in warfare. There is a reference about something called either a cheiroballistra or a manuballista, which may (or may not) be a type of crossbow. Crossbows were in widespread use with the Chinese military at one time and were found on the European battlefield between the 13th and 15th centuries. A much-improved version of the crossbow is still employed in combat by some modern special force units. **


	18. Pregnant

**Chapter 18: Pregnant **

* * *

**_Then when the lady was delivered, the king commanded two knights and two ladies to take the child, bound in a cloth of gold, and that ye deliver him to what poor man ye meet at the postern gate of the castle. So the child was delivered unto Merlin, and so he bare it forth unto Sir Ector, and made an holy man to christen him, and named him Arthur; and so Sir Ector's wife nourished him with her own pap._**

Birth of Arthur, Chapter III, _Le Morte d'Arthur_by Sir Thomas Malory

**Judy faces down the angry priest, while Bleddyn sees the devastation which war brings upon the innocent. In the future Nicolaus arrives in Zootopia and runs into one of Nick's friends.**

* * *

**489**

To say that the haughty priest was not going to be happy when he saw that the bunny was pregnant was a definite understatement. The tall red deer in the black robe went ballistic and berated Judy as he towered over her. The angry words were bad enough, but Judy was no pushover and argued back until finally in his growing rage, the tall priest seized up his crosier and raised the staff as if he was going to strike her. Before Nick could react, the buck found the very sharp point of a flint spear shoved under his muzzle and heard the angry snarl of the wild fox.

"Whilst thou allow this pagan to assault me, a priest of the Holy Church?" the buck yelled toward the two hulking bulls. Neither of the brothers had drawn their swords, but they had only watched as the events transpired with rather amused faces and then grinned at the dilemma the priest had gotten himself into. "I will see that you two knights are excommunicated in disgrace!"

Sir Lionel shrugged his massive mail-clad shoulders as he looked over at Sir Bors. "Excommunicated he says," the bull grunted to his brother. Then he turned back towards the priest again, "Have at it, we are not followers of your milksop gods, but worship the horned god and I don't think your church recognizes him."

Sir Cai stepped forward and the bear gently placed his massive paw on the spear, he had not drawn his sword either. "I think we all need to calm down," he sighed. "Let us talk this over, we have a rabbit carrying a fox's child and that is impossible…"

"Get your red-furred devil under control vixen!" the priest suddenly demanded as he stared over at Aideen. The female fox in the winged helmet was watching all that was going on with wide eyes. Her tail bristled in sudden anger when she heard the buck's command.

"Enough!" a voice spoke and everyone turned to where Sir Tristan was kneeling. At first, the tod seemed to be paying no attention to what was going on around him, but instead was playing in the ashes with a stick. Finally, he wiped his paws on his tunic as he stood up to face the priest. "Verily, the Lamb came unto the Lion's den and spoketh unto the great king. Behold my lord all things have their proper place in nature, but if the One who is Above All proclaims that the sun shall rise in the west, then that too shall pass," he quoted from the Book of the Lamb. "Place ye no store in what ye believe tis true, but listen to thy heart."

"I know the stories from the Book of The Lamb, fox!" the priest yelled. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It means that my heart tis telling me that I should not judge Judy, least I too shall be judged," the fox answered. "Mayhap yon rabbit should be interviewed and yes, even judged, but it should be by ones far more learned then a mere country priest. For if this is truly a miracle and not base debauchery, as thou claimth, then we will face the wrath of the gods if we harm her and are wrong."

"I am not just some country priest!" the buck in the black robes began to object. "I am a missionary sent to convert the heathen…"

"No, you are a spy for the Church," Sir Bors flatly stated. "But, if you really wish to be a great missionary among the heathens, then maybe we should leave you here with the foxes and wolf-like ones."

"No, my mission is to convert the…"

"As I said, you are a spy!"

"How dare you…"

"I am in command of this quest and until we return home, it is my judgment that Judy will be held as a prisoner and remain with us for the duration of our travels," Sir Cai commanded. "After we return, then the Church may do with her as they see fit."

"No!" Nick objected. "We are not part of your expedition."

"It's okay Nick," Judy suddenly interjected. She stood there looking so venerable in his oversized sweatshirt. "For some reason, I think we need to stay with Sir Cai and the others."

Nick looked first at the bear and then the back at his wife. "But Carrots!" he began to object.

"Don't but Carrots me Slick!" she said with a smile as she reached up and pulled his muzzle down so she could look into his eyes. "In my heart, I feel we need to let this play out, for the sake of our son."

"But…" the fox began to object.

She stood up and kissed him on his nose. "Trust me," she whispered as she tapped his bracelet. "We'll be safe."

The priest wasn't done with her yet and he whirled around with his robe swishing, as he turned to face the spear wolves and the seals. "You…you warriors and you sailors, do thy duty and seize her as I command!"

One of the wolves just shouldered his spear and stared up at the priest. "We were ordered by Arthur to escort and protect all who are on this quest," he answered. "If Sir Cai says that she sails with us, then she too is now under our protection."

"Don't look at me ya landlubber," the crusty seal who was the ship's captain snorted. "Ye hath been a pain in my dorsal flipper ever since ye boarded me ship. We'd be up the northern coast if it hadn't been for ye whining and moaning when ye should have helped with the sail during the storm instead of praying. Ye haven't lifted one of those soft hoofs ta elp us mate, least the bulls and the fox kin their elp when called upon. I had it my bloody way, I'd myself would ave keelhauled ya by now, lest yer horns might've scraped some of the barnacles from the hull when we dragged ya under."

The priest huffed and stormed away, leaving the other behind.

"Best we float this tub whilest the tide be in, she is fit as a fiddler crab and ready ta sail," the captain continued. "Water and food hast still yet ta be stored, it be time to catch the wind lads!"

"I guess we better take off our mail," Sir Lionel sighed. "There is no need to get it wet and rusty while we help give the ship a shove."

"Best avert your eyes ladies, I'd hate for you to see on how puny your male foxes are," Sir Bors chuckled as he began to strip his chain mail shirt off.

"All hands to the hull foxes!" the skipper called out. Nick looked toward Tristan and the other fox had begun to pull off his tunic.

They put their backs into it as they pushed and heaved the clunky ship from the sandy shore and out into the surf, finally reaching a point where the ship could float. Then they carried the stores though the waves to be loaded by the crew into the hull and then large stones for added ballast to keep the ship upright.

Their ship was not a warship like the sleek longships of the boars or the white bears. The trader had no oars, but instead had two sails, a larger square sail in the center and a smaller sail to the bow. The ship was made from stout oak and measured forty-six feet long by twenty four-feet wide. Nick was never the sailor type and had only been on a few of the large ferries which ran to Outback Islands, he was however surprised to see that there were two massive planks that hung off the stern of the ship. One of the seals told him that they were called keel-planks and along with the sails, they were used to steer the ship. A small hut or cabin had been erected towards the aft where they could take shelter from the sun and weather.

As he helped Judy aboard, Nick looked around at the small ship and in his typical "Wilde fashion", he smirked as he told her, "I don't think we are going to get any piña coladas on this cruise!"

"I'll just be happy if I don't get seasick," she answered with a smile.

"Fox get to work!" the skipper yelled, sending Nick scurrying over to see what he was supposed to do.

They set sail, hugging the coastline as they proceed northward. Nick sat around and watched the heavily wooded shore, trying to remember any of his geography. "You think we are anywhere near New Gnu?" he asked Judy. The rabbit had taken refuge from the afternoon sun in the cabin.

"Everything looks the same since we passed what will be called the Sahara Coast all those hours ago," she replied. "Don't you know your geography?"

"Oh come on Carrots, you know that any geography outside of the city is not something that I would know too much about. If it wasn't someplace to hide, or a good place to pull a scam, it wasn't I something I was interested in…well besides Pawaii."

"I know you dropped out of school, but you did get your GED."

"I may have earned it, but I only did what I had to in order to pass and I only did that because I got tired of hearing Finn bitching about me not finishing high school."

"Finn is a good friend, I guess he will be our child's godfather and Fru Fru will of course be his godmother."

"Did you ever think that we would one day even be discussing this?"

"This is the easy part, just wait until you have to explain to my dad that you knocked me up!"

"I'll be happy to do that, if we ever get back home to our own time."

"Back home…" Judy sighed as she looked at the dense thicket of trees along the shoreline. "Home, back where there are flush toilets and toilet paper. I wonder where a pregnant rabbit can take a pee around here?"

"Ask Aideen."

She did and the vixen just handed her a bucket and pointed towards the cabin. "Wash it out when thou art finished," was her only instruction. "You and I must share this bucket and the guys shalt relieve themselves over the ship's side."

"Oh goody, this isn't exactly the Love Boat!" Nick snickered as he crooned out, "Love Boat soon will be making another run…The Love Boat…"

"Fie, what tis this Love Boat?" the vixen asked.

"Never mind," Judy interjected as she shoved her husband and the vixen away from the cabin's door. "A little privacy would be appreciated."

When she finished and went to dump the bucket, she was quickly confronted by the skipper. "Ye will not be tossing that out lassie. A female's urine can be boiled down to make a shave for cuts and burns and yours be magical."

"It's just my pee!"

"Aye, and ye be pregnant with yon fox's child, tis a magical act at that and hence thy piss must hath magical powers."

Reluctantly she handed the bucket to the seal. The priest had watched the whole exchange and glowered at her from the bow. "Witchcraft!" he muttered to himself.

* * *

**489**

The cairn that the foxes had built over the graves was much too large for the small villagers that were buried under the pile of stones. Why the rams had so brutally murdered the whole village of hedgehogs was a tragic mystery to Bleddyn. The invaders had batted the poor inhabitants around as if they were balls and then crushed them under hoof when they were finished. It wasn't just brutal, it was sadistic. The last of the small victims that the foxes had gently placed in the mass grave had been pregnant and even the most hardened of the warriors had to wipe a tear or two from his eyes at the sight the battered lifeless mother-to-be.

The red fox wiped his paws on his torn tartan cape as he listened to his chieftain's conversation with Sir Gaheris. The thin hare wore a bloody bandage covering where he was cut across his chest during their last battle, the knight however did not show that he felt any pain. "They are baiting a trap for us," the knight, now called the Mad Monk, said to the larger fox. "They are hoping in our anger that we will charge headfirst into their ambush. Being rams, that is what they would probably do if they were us."

"So we flank them again?" the chieftain asked. "I've already lost too many of my kin in this war."

"It will come to an end."

"When? The Ram King presses further into the mountains and our king only withdraws. When will he engage the enemy in a real battle?"

"When Arthur comes."

"He has come too late for those poor villagers we just buried."

"Arthur will come and he will bring the rams to bay."

"I've heard reports from our scouts that the boars harass the coast and the clans have laid siege to the wall."

"The bulls and their allies will hold the wall as always and not all of the highland clans have joined the raiders this time, they have no king or great warlord to lead them. Sooner or later, they will realize that they cannot succeed and melt back into the misty mountains of the north to lick their wounds. Most of them are in it for the loot and slaves anyways."

"What about the boars? They have raided your father's lands."

"The boars do not have the temperament or the weapons to lay a prolonged siege, our warrens will hold until help arrives."

"Who's going to help us? Will the Legions return? No, we are on our own this time. Even the Church in Cair Lundem has no soldiers to spare, they worry about the south."

"Have faith."

"Faith? Your kind always tells us foxes to have faith! Don't you understand why I have so little faith in well-meaning prey mammals and the gods? You use us for your wars and yet we are persecuted in most of the lands where we live. I grew up with being told to have faith that better times will come, but they never do. Our greatest knight, Sir Bedivere was your best friend and yet you had to slay him in combat to save him from the flames for the sin of loving your sister."

"That is a shame that I will carry to my grave," the hare sadly replied. His ears drooped and he wiped a few tears from his eyes. "Yet the Church…"

"The Church!" the fox growled. "Do not speak of me about the Church. Those sanctimonious hypocrites blame us foxes for original sin! Original sin, as if we should pay for what others do to each other. The ones who killed these hedgehogs were not foxes, but rams! No fox would have dreamed of being so evil as to do this!"

Picking up another stone, he placed it upon the pile. "This isn't time for faith, but for blood and gore. A new moon rises and it's a blood moon. We will let those who killed these innocents live today, but mark my words hare, I will see that they fall under a fox's spear before this is all over. As for Arthur, he had better hurry or he will have to tread upon our dead when he gets here."

"Arthur will come," Sir Gaheris said in a determined voice. "He must come."

* * *

**Present Day **

Pregnant vixens have to pee almost as much as pregnant rabbits and Agent Minos gave Nicolaus an agitated look when Maria once again rushed towards the bathroom at the airport. When the vixen finally returned, the two foxes entwined that paws again as they stared in excitement at the terminal. "Wait until you get outside!" the cat laughed. "You think the city looks like something from the air, you haven't seen anything."

They waited for their luggage. Minos had packed only a carry-on bag, but the foxes had two large suitcases each and a wicker bag. The cat watched patiently as they marveled at the luggage carousel and then struggled to pull their bags off the contraption before they went around once again. The cat watched the two lovers, Marie in her blue and white flowered dress with her ears covered by a linen scarf and Nicolaus in his slightly too large out of style suit. "Like fish out of water," he sighed to himself. "Small country foxes from a backwater village, now in the Big Z." Then he felt sorry for them because he knew that they were not going to do any sightseeing, but had to go straight to the University and the doctors who awaited them. At least Nicolaus will finally meet Nick Wilde and maybe they can sort out why he was dreaming the other fox's memories.

After gathering their belongings, Minos led them across the busy crosswalk and towards where he had parked his sedan. Suddenly an old rusty orange van stopped in front of them, there was a mural on the van's side of a barbarian looking wolf holding a fainted white arctic vixen. A small head with large tan ears poked out of the driver's window. "Nick! Hey Nick! Where have you been fox and who's the cute vixen?" a deep voice called out.

"Finn…Finnick?" Nicolaus said in confusion. "Your name is Finnick, right?"

"Of course I am. Say, what's wrong with you Wilde and why are you dressed like a scarecrow?" the small fennec fox asked. Then he saw the aegean cat in the black suit. "Aw shit, this wasn't one of those undercover gigs, was it? Don't tell me I blew your cover."

* * *

**The "Horned God" mentioned by the bulls is not the devil, but an ancient god named Cocidius. Carvings of the god have been found near Hadrian's Wall and are believed to represent a local god worshiped by not only the locals, but the lower-ranked Roman soldiers. There was a shrine to the warrior god found in the old Roman fort in Bewcastle, Cumberland.**

**The theme song for the Love Boat television show was composed by Charles Fox to lyrics by Paul Williams and was first sung by Jack Jones. **

**Pliny the Elder wrote that fresh urine could be used for the treatment of ****_"sores, burns, affections of the anus, chaps and scorpion stings"._**** Henry VIII's surgeon Thomas Vicary even recommended that all battle wounds should be washed in urine. It was more sterile than the water at that time in history. ****HOWEVER,**** this is not recommended by modern science, because even fresh urine can quickly become contaminated with bacteria. **


	19. Gathering Flames

**Chapter 19: Gathering Flames **

* * *

**_And they journeyed over the plain of Argyngroeg as far as the ford of Rhyd y Groes on the Severn. And for a mile around the ford on both sides of the road, they saw tents and encampments, and there was the clamor of a mighty host. And they came to the edge of the ford, and there they beheld Arthur sitting on a flat island below the ford, having Bedwini the Bishop on one side of him, and Gwarthegyd the son of Kaw on the other._**

From the Welsh manuscript The Dream Of Rhonabwy

**We continue our story as the allies begin to gather.**

* * *

**Present Day**

"Nicolaus, we have got to get going!" Agent Minos quickly interjected himself into the awkward conversation between the red fox and the small fennec fox in the large van. "We have an appointment."

"Yo cat, cool it!" the smaller fox, who Nicolaus called Finn, snapped back at him. Then the small fox returned his attention back to the larger fox. "Wilde are you okay, you're being weird? You're acting like we aren't buds anymore and where's the bunny, Judy is usually under paw all the time?"

"Bunny?" Nickolas tilted his head in confusion. "The bunny…yeah, Judy!" he finally barked out. "You know Nick and Judy!"

"Wait, you ain't Nick?" Finnick asked in surprise.

"Nicolaus …" the cat in the black suit began again.

"Nick are you drugged or sumtin?" the smaller fox asked. "I'm gonna call your cop buddies, you ain't actin right in the noggin."

"I am the police!" Minos called out as he flashed his badge. "ZBI and this isn't you pal Nick, this is Nicolaus. You need to move along fox!"

"But he knows about Nick, I need to talk to him!" Nicolaus desperately called out. Maria gripped his arm, keeping him from dashing forward.

"I am taking you to Nick now, let's get going!"

"Wait, you know where Wilde is?" Finnick called from the van. "I've been trying to reach him all month and his mother has too!"

"I said move along fox!" the cat snapped back. "This is a police matter."

Finn cursed as he put the van in drive and growled almost as loud as the van's smoky backfire. He glanced back at the cat with the two foxes, that tod sounded and even smelled like Nick Wilde. "Taking him to see Nick," he muttered. "So he knows where Wilde and Judy are!" He pulled a business card from his pocket and stared at it for a few moments, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost ran off the road. With another set of creative swearing, he pulled into a parking lot and dug around for one of his prepaid phones. As a scam artist, he always had a few cheap burner phones he could use and dump.

He called the written phone number on the back of one of the police issued business cards which Nick had given to him awhile back and a shrill feminine voice answered. "Yeah, my name is Finnick and I'm a pal of Nick Wilde's. He said that if there ever was an emergency and I couldn't reach him or Judy, I was supposed to call this number. He said that you were best friends with Judy and I was just wondering if you had heard from her lately because I think they might be in trouble."

"Daddy! The voice yelled from the other end of the phone and there was a conversation which he could not make out before a familiar voice answered.

"Mister Big!" the fox stammered. "Sir, I didn't know this was your phone number?"

* * *

**489 **

On the third day, as they sailed northward along the heavily wooded coastline, a squall hit their small wooden sailing ship and they bobbed about like a cork being tossed hither and dale by the foul weather. It was then that Nick experienced the unpleasant sensation of seasickness and the now drenched fox leaned over the ship's wooden side to empty the contents of his queasy stomach into the churning sea. His discomfort great amusement for the seal sailors and the wolves, who seemed to have cast-iron stomachs. The wild fox, however, joined him at the ship's side and also added his stomach's contents into the waves.

"This is the first time I've ever seen two red foxes both turn green!" Sir Bores laughed out loud. "Eat more roughage and less fish, it will settle your stomach!"

"Now I know how you feel Carrots," Nick groaned as he slid down the ship's side and into a puddle of water on the deck. Judy's stomach problems had less to do with the weather, but more with her prolonged morning sickness.

The squall finally passed them over and the weather began to calm back to normal, but there was still the violent rolling of the waves. "There be an inlet up the coast!" a seal cried out.

"Aye steer for it lads and we will shelter there for the night, this weather be turning again on us," the captain called back to the others. "Mayhaps we shalt have a break long enough to go ashore and start a fire to cook our nightly vittles."

With the ship tucked away in relative safety, they made their camp ashore and set a small cooking fire blazing. Just as the smoking fire began to turn to coals hot enough to put a large iron cauldron on top of them so that the cook could begin to make another fishy gruel for their dinner, two gray foxes appeared from out of the woods. They were thin and wore kilt like skirts made from dune grass. At first, they waited by the trees, until the wild fox and Tristan cautiously approached them. After a few moments of haltingly talking to each other in the old fox language, the two gray tods entered the camp and sat down by the fire, where Aideen joined them.

Nick watched them from where he sat with Judy and he couldn't help but feel somewhat left out, an oddball in the crowd of other foxes, all because he did not speak the old tongue. As he watched the other foxes talking to each other, he wondered why the language had died out by the twenty-first century. "Hey Fluff," he asked as she leaned back into his lap. "You know a few foxes in the countryside and do any of them speak Old Fox?"

"I really only know just a few, such as Gideon and his family. You've met him several times, has he ever tied to talk to you that way?"

"No, I was just wondering. Come to think of it, none of the foxes we met in the twenties spoke it either. I was just wondering when it died out?"

"Are you feeling left out, Slick?"

He reached over and put a paw on her belly before answering. "Yeah, kind of…"

Behind them, the priest just glared at the content couple. "Blasphemy!" he snorted to Sir Cai. "They sin against the gods, look at them!"

The bear glanced over at the fox and rabbit snuggled together watching the sunset. "I have spoken my last word on this priest," he finally growled out. "Keep to yourself."

The buck in the black robe threw his hoofs into the air and stormed off toward the seashore.

"Maybe we will get lucky and he'll get lost," Sir Bors chuckled.

From where they were sitting by the fire pit, the wild fox watched the priest and frowned.

That night Judy found herself protectively wedged between two red foxes, Nick on one side and the wild fox on the other.

* * *

**489**

Arthur removed his helmet and wiped his furry brow with the sleeve of his tunic. The scale mail he wore jingled and he adjusted it, trying to make it more comfortable. He had worn the new armor that Henry had given him back at Caer Camlann and not the usual chain mail he was used to. His small force of bears and his household guard had marched for days and so far had not engaged the enemy, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

"We will bite at their flanks," he had told the war council the night before they left the safety of Caer Camlann. "Drive them northwards into the wilds and there we can trap them. "

Mordred nodded as he looked at the map. "Can the bulls and their allies hold the wall?" he finally asked.

"King Guethelin has dispatched his finest archers to aid them," Sir Erec replied. "The clans are only in it for the loot and without a strong leader. Given time, they will break like they always do and go home to the mountains. The boars, however, are in it more for the land than the loot. Aldroen is playing a dangerous game this time. "

"So even if he wins, they will sooner and later turn upon him."

"Yes Sir Milord…I mean your highness."

"Not if we destroy their army in the field," King Mordred continued. "Push them into his kingdom, we should be able to do that."

"What about those coming by boat along the western coast?" Sir Gawain asked. The knight had a worried look as he glanced towards his new king. The question was asked towards Mordred, but everyone looked towards Arthur for an answer.

Mordred knew that despite his now being king, most of the warriors still turned to Arthur for leadership. Although it bothered him, he knew that he had Arthur's support as king and he too looked over at the war chief. "What about the raiders?" he asked.

Arthur crossed his arms and nodded slightly to the king. "Your majesty," he began to answer, letting the words sink into the ears of the gathered bears and their attendants. "Your majesty, King Maelgwn assures me that he has that situation well in paw."

"Then we must trust good King Maelgwn," Mordred agreed, relieved that Arthur had shown him the respect expected for a king. "He is a renowned warrior."

The bear came out of his musings when he saw a dozen red foxes in forest green tunics jog past him. They were archers from the southern regions of the kingdom, near the large forest called the Great Shirwode. Most of the archers had their stout five-foot bows, but he smiled when he saw some had a few recently made crossbows. The rams and their allies were in for a nasty and deadly surprise.

"You're falling behind Wart!" Sir Gawain laughed as he joined him. "What's the matter, you getting too old for this?"

"Don't call me Wart," Arthur sighed as he pulled his helmet back on his head and began walking.

Although the northern kingdoms were known by the names of the ruler of their Seven Houses, the inhabitants of those kingdoms were not all just the same species as their rulers. Before him, his army consisted not only of bears, but had its fair share of deer, foxes, weasels, badgers, and even sheep. They were all residents of the lands and villages within the boundaries of the Kingdom of the Bears.

* * *

**489**

Far to the south of Arthur and his army, Sir Sagramor stopped and watched as his small column of professional soldiers marched past him. At full strength, his Centuria should have had eighty heavily armed stallions and a mule train of a dozen retainers with the soldier's gear in their wagons. Instead, they had only forty-six stallions, eight mules, and a half-dozen lightly armed impalas who acted as scouts. Each of the armored stallions wore their heavy scale mail and carried a stout lance, along with a long sword. They were mobile troops, trained to use their speed to charge and drive into the enemy. Ill-suited for fighting in a shield wall, they were still quite capable in their heavy armor of shattering such a defense.

For a few moments he looked southward towards Londinium, the once-great city was now just a mere shadow of its former greatness. Fear of the encroaching barbarians from the south, and the lack of an accountable local government, had driven the city's inhabitants to flee either northward, westward, or even overseas.

After the Legions had left the island, many of the rich and timid had also migrated and settled across the channel along the coast. There a powerful kingdom had begun to arise, one which was strong enough to defend itself from barbarian invasions. Unlike on this island, the tribes of the mainland had kept and adapted the culture and laws left behind by the Legionnaires. Sword and blood, along with the Church, were slowly beginning to give that land some semblance of peace and prosperity again.

Sir Sagramor knew very little of his father's kingdom, which was further to the east on the mainland and far beyond the mountains. The Stallion King had ruled a great grassy plain that was surrounded to the north, west, and south by tree-covered mountains. His father's kingdom of Pannonia was also built on the remnants of the Legionnaire's empire, but it had been finally overrun by barbarians from the distant northern steppes. Now, these conquering tribes found themselves being attacked by other barbarians from the north. Below this land, was the Great Eastern Empire of the Last Caesar, his mother's family, and they were powerful enough to defend their lands from not only the barbarians from the north but also the raiders from the eastern desert.

Beyond that great desert were the lands of the mountain warriors, the kingdoms of the tiger shahs, those of the elephant rajahs, and even further along the Silk Road there was the legendary Empire of Amir with its Great Wall. Sir Sagramor shook his head for there was no further use for him to reflect about his past, he had a mission to complete before he and his soldiers could return to Londinium and to the service of the bishop who dwelt there. No, he knew that he and his troops were destined to die here in this cold and rain-soaked land, never to see the sunny fields of his homeland.

* * *

**The Western Roman Empire really didn't just fall, it more or less faded into history as internal strife, civil wars, and invasions by encroaching "barbarian" tribes gradually drove it into decay. Rome itself was finally sacked by the Goths in 410 and some consider Flavius Romulus Augustus as being the "last Western Roman emperor", although his brief reign was less than one year and ended on September 4, 476. The Eastern Roman Empire, also called Byzantium, survived and thrived for almost a thousand years more, "ending" when Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos died while defending its capital city, Constantinople, in 1453. That great city is now known as Istanbul.**

**Sir Sagramor's stallions would be this reality's version of the Romanized cataphracts or heavy cavalry. Their heavy scale coats of armor, which covered both the riders and his horse, were resistant to blows enough to allow them to drive their long lances into the ranks of opposing foot soldiers. In some ways, they were the forerunners of the later heavily armored mounted knight. **

**The mainland kingdom would be Francia which rose to power upon the ruins of the Gallo-Roman providences.** **Clovis I united the various Frankish tribes and led them to conquer much of modern France and parts of Germany, he ruled from 481 to 511.**

**Many of the Romano-British fled the island of their birth and settled in Brittany on the coast of what is now modern France. They also established a colony, called Britonia, in Spanish Galicia. **


	20. His Name is Arthur

**Chapter 20: His Name is Arthur**

* * *

"**_My father told me great tales of you. … Fairy tales. The kind you hear about people so brave, so selfless, that they can't be real. Arthur and his knights. A leader both Briton and Roman."_**

Guinevere to Arthur in the movie _King Arthur_

**King Mordred leads his army to victory in a minor battle and Arthur wins a skirmish. Nick and Judy find themselves sailing northward into the lands of the white bears. **

* * *

**489**

Sir Gawain panted with exhaustion as he leaned over and wiped the blood off his long knife, he had tossed his now cracked and splintered linden wood shield into the trampled grass. He looked back to the war-torn river crossing and at all of the bodies that laid slain in the swirling bloody red waters, the sea boars had made a stand on the opposite bank, their shield wall was drawn up deep against the advancing bears.

His ancestors had realized long ago that to charge wildly into a shield wall was disastrous, a lesson learned in defeat as they desperately fought the advancing iron-clad Legionnaires all those many generations ago. As far as he knew, there was only one effective way to battle a shield wall and that was with your own. With shields almost locked together and your ranks bristling with spears, axes, and drawn long knives, you would advance into your foes matching deadly ranks. Then it came down to pushing, shoving, and stabbing, with warriors stepping upon the bodies of the fallen as they pressed into the other line. A shield wall was a terrible thing and not for the faint-hearted.

The bears had the advantage of physical size, but the boars had a greater number. Gawain pulled off his iron helmet and ran his paw over the dent caused by a glancing blow from a war ax. Although he was a veteran of such battle, he still shuddered as he remembered the haze of the day's combat. The smaller boars squealing out their war cries which he answered with his own mighty roar, as he shoved his shield against theirs while he stabbed with his long knife. He used his knife because his longer sword was too unwieldy for such close-quarter fighting. More than one spear shattered against his stout iron-rimmed shield, jarring his arm with their impact. He recalled feeling the heavy thump of a war ax being swung by a boar in the back ranks as the warrior tried to hook the top of his shield with his ax's concave edge and drag it down enough for one of his companions to strike a killing blow.

Blood covered his paw because the warrior before him had lowered his shield slightly, giving Gawain enough space to stab his knife into the boar's throat. As he stepped upon the dying warrior, he batted aside another boar's shield and drove his knife into that warrior's chest, straight through the chain mail. The bear grunted at the impact of a sharp knife as it skidded off the bronze greaves he wore on his legs, deflecting the blow. He brought the bottom of his shield slamming down on the fallen boar, shattering his teeth and tusks. There was another jarring impact as an ax lodged itself into his now splintering shield, but before he could strike back, a spear plunged over his shoulder and into the ax welder's face. Then the boars broke rank and the real slaughter began.

Looking at the slain and wounded again, he ran his paws through his head fur and sighed. King Mordred was brave, he fought in the center of the shield line and Sir Ector would have been proud of the Bear King's brutal tactics, but he was no Arthur.

Arthur hated the shield wall, although he would use it to lock down his enemy's ranks before he would outflank them. For Arthur, a battle was not hacking and slashing at each other, no it was a fluid and ever-changing action. Some bards even called it the "Dance of War."

"We've won the day!" Mordred joyfully cried out as he joined him. "It was well fought."

Sir Gawain nodded as he watched the surviving boars flee in the distance. "Yes your highness, but we should press on and engage them again before they can regroup."

"No, we are spent."

"Aye that we are," the knight agreed but he frowned while watching the foe fleeing in the distance. Yes, Mordred was brave, but he was no Arthur.

There was the sound of yelling and Gawain turned towards the commotion. He saw several large bears with drawn swords standing over a line of kneeling wounded and captured boars. Some of the captives were just scared teens who hadn't even grown their tusks. A sword slashed down, slaying a boar and he watched as the bloody weapon was lifted again. "You there, stop!" he commanded as he began to storm towards the warriors.

"Sir Gawain!" Mordred snapped at him. "They are following my command to leave none alive."

"But mercy…"

"No mercy, I want the invaders to know that I will spare no one who dares invade my kingdom or those of the Seven Houses."

Gawain looked back at his king and then nodded.

"Milord?" the warrior asked him.

"Do as your…our king…commands!" Gawain growled.

No, Mordred was no Arthur.

* * *

**489**

The rams and goats stood in formation, the survivors of an army that the Ram King had sent to stop Arthur's advance. They had been confident at first when they saw how much smaller the opposing army was compared to their own reinforced cohort and marched with military precision towards where the bears and their allies appeared to be making their stand, a thin shield wall in the narrower part of the valley. Unknown to their commander Sir Locinna, they faced only a token force of Arthur's overall army. Before they could form their own shield wall to meet the bears in battle, the sounds of horns blared behind them as another larger force of Arthur's army appeared at their rear. Hemmed in between two advancing enemy forces, their commander did the only thing he could do and that was to form his soldiers into a rough overlapping square.

Arthur watched the heavily armored rams and the lightly armed goats scramble into formation before he had his retainer lift up his father's standard, the gold dragon on a white field, and wave it. Then came the arrows from his army's archers, a wooden iron-tipped rain of deadly projectiles launched by the bucks and foxes. The Sir Locinna hastily tried to adjust the interior lines to turn and protect his troop's exposed backs, but the arrows hit true and many of these soldiers were killed by the first salvo.

Then there was another blare of the horns and the two lines of the opposing army halted and waited as the archers took their deadly aim. Looking up the steep hillsides that flanked his army, the ram commander ordered his goats to attack the archers on the crest of the slopes. The lightly armored goats charged upward with their spears, but they too fell under the hail of deadly arrows and also some crossbow bolts. The survivors fled back into the armored square, seeking shelter.

Sir Locinna knew that almost a third of his unit had already fallen and they hadn't even struck a blow against the opposing forces. He was prepared to order the square to march forward to engage the enemy with the forlorn hope that they might be able to fight their way clear of the trap, but before he could do so, a familiar-looking ram stepped out of Arthur's ranks.

As he walked into the field between the two armies Sir Erec removed his iron helmet so that everyone could see who he was. There was murmuring from the rams facing him because he was well known and liked by the soldiers. "Cousin!" Sir Locinna called out as he weaved through the packed lines of his rams. "I heard that you betrayed and abandoned our lord and had entered into the service of Arthur."

"I got tired of watching Aldroen give our children into slavery or worse!" the knight answered loud enough so the soldiers facing him could hear his words too. "The king underestimates the boars. They want more than just slaves and loot, we all remember how King Vortigern tried to do the same and what happened."

"Our Caesar wants to unite this land and together we will be strong enough to defeat them, to drive them into the sea," Sir Locinna answered.

"Caesar? He calls himself a Caesar now? Aldroen wants to relive a time that is long gone. The day of the mighty Caesars has passed, just like those of the Legionnaires. Are you and your soldiers willing to die for a long-dead dream?

"We serve the Caesar, our deaths will at least be honorable and bards will sing of our loyalty."

"There is nothing honorable about dying here today, under a shower of arrows, spears, and stones. The bards will only sing about your foolishness."

"Still we will not betray our Caesar."

"Then you shall die and we all will mourn the deaths of such fine soldiers when the boars come to burn our homes and take our lands."

There was dissatisfied muttering from within the packed ranks behind Sir Locinna and he heard it.

Sir Erec looked past the other knight. "Arthur does not want your blood!" he called out the soldiers. "Lay down your arms, swear that you will never take them up against the Seven Houses again and then you will be freed."

Sir Locinna whirled around to face his troops. "Any soldiers who does so will be killed as a traitor!" he called out. "A traitor such as this ram!" With a bahhing cry, he drew his short deadly sword and charged at Sir Erec.

The knight had only his knife for a weapon, for he had left both his shield and his war ax behind as a show of peace. "Erec!" a voice cried out and he turned to see that a bear had tossed him a large sword. Moving quickly, he seized it up from where it had landed and brought it in front of him just in time to block his attacker's thrust. The sound of metal clanging against metal echoed in the valley. With a mightily cry, he swept the sword up and chopped it down upon Sir Locinna's neck. As the other ram fell forward into the green grass, it was then that Sir Erec realized that he held Arthur's great blade Caliburn in his hoof.

Turning back towards the line of rams, he lifted the blade over his head. All were silent at first and then there was the sound of a sword rhythmically hitting a shield and then another and another. Soon the sound was deafening as the rest of the soldiers joined in and began to cry Erec…Erec…Erec!"

The knight raised the bloody blade over his head again and cried out, "Arrrthurrr!"

Soon both sides were now chanting the name Arthur!

* * *

**489**

"The two gray foxes saith that there tis a colony of seals north along yon coast, nar a day's sail from here," Tristan said to Sir Cai the next morning. "But they hath warned us of the…well, I thinketh they said it twas beasties who eat the flesh?"

"Cannibals or savages?" the bear knight asked.

"Mayhaps, but our wild fox friend hath never heard of such besties. He did saith that there twas old tales of flesh rendering monsters who warred with the wolves."

"Ay, then we must be more careful from henceforth," the captain added. "We shalt stay aboard at nights."

They set sail on the morning tide and continued their slow trek up the coast. Later that afternoon they saw some huts in a small inlet, but these seemed abandoned.

"Sail!" a lookout warned. "Tis a sail to the nor'east.

"Aye that be a longship!" the captain cursed. "We can't outrun her likes."

"I see white bears aboard her!" Aideen called out. She had climbed onto the bowsprit and the wild fox desperately clung to her waist to keep her steady.

"Get thee off of that!" Tristan snarled at her

"Tie the olive branches as a sign of peace to the mast!" Cai commanded. "Then everyone, prepare for the worst." The stout bear reached into his bundle of clothes and pulled out his long shirt of chain mail.

"Let us pray that they are not pirates!" the priest intoned. "Come knell and we shall pay for salvation!"

"Pray on your own damn time!" Sir Bors grunted as he pulled on this own chain mail.

"Get thee a spear," Aideen called over to Nick. "We hath no mail that will fit ye, but take my shield." The wild fox helped her adjust her own chain mail. They spoke briefly in the Old Tongue and he nodded as he picked up her winged helmet and carefully placed it upon her head. His paw came down and gently caressed her cheek. The vixen blushed slightly before she grasped her spear and turned to face the approaching warship.

The wild fox then picked up his own spear and stepped in front of Judy. "Aideen!" Judy called over to the vixen. "What is his name?"

Aideen barked and yipped out a name and then sighed. "Tis not one which translates well into our language," she added.

"Well, we must call him something!" Judy looked the fox over, he was dressed in a yellow tunic borrowed from one of the wolves and it was oversized for his muscular frame. He was a handsome tod, younger than Nick. An inspiration suddenly came to her as she remembered all the childhood stories and classic movies about King Arthur and his chivalrous Knights of the Roundtable. She remembered the name of the greatest knight and the most virtuous of them all. "Galahad! His name shall be Galahad!"

"Galahad…Galeas…," Tristian softly said. "One who tis pure, noble, and unselfish, that seemth about right."

"I don't think he has pure thoughts about your sister!" one of the wolves snickered. He stopped laughing when he saw the look that the vixen was giving him.

"Then Galahad it is!" Judy called out.

The longship had lowered its sail, as its crew took to the oars, and at the bow stood a huge polar bear in silvery chain mail. The white bear's arms were crossed over his broad chest.

"A warrior worth his meddle," Sir Bors snorted in approval. "He has seen battle before, look at all the gold and silver armbands he wears."

The stern-looking bear was joined at the bow by a seal. The seal tied to lift up over his head a huge shield, which was backward so that the plain undecorated side showed, but the oversized shield was heavy and the seal began to stumble backward. The bear glanced down at his companion and quickly lowered a paw to grip the top of the wooden shield and steady it back straight, almost lifting the poor seal from the deck.

"The white shield is the northerners sign of peace, well it looks like we talk," Sir Lionel sighed in relief. "That is good because I hate fighting aboard a ship. You have all that rolling and tossing caused by the waves, and then the blood gets pooled up on the deck and it gets into your hooves. Besides, I can't swim."

"No one can swim far with a mail coat on," Sir Bors snorted.

The seal holding the shield on the other ship called over to their captain in a series of arf sounding barks, snorts, and an eerie whale-like sounds. "Tis the seafarer's language," Tristan softly said to Cai.

"They be asking if we hath been ashore," a seal sailor translated the other two seals ongoing conversation to Nick, Judy, and Aideen. "They art here to check upon yon village, it seemth that the villagers hath not been heard from for several moons."

"Then they have no interest in us?" Judy asked.

"Nay, only in yon village."

The white bear leaped aboard from his ship's bow and stood looked down at Sir Cai. Sir Bors stepped next to his fellow knight and challengingly stared the polar bear in the eyes. Both of the warriors were about the same size.

"Carrots, I think he is bigger than Koslov!" Nick whispered to Judy.

The two seals were animatedly talking and then the seal spoke to the bear, the translation of his answer made the captain scowl. "Tis seemth that our ship hath been seized," the crusty seal grumbled out. "The chieftain says that he may hath need of our ship."

"Ask him if he knows of King Balder," Cai asked. He had reached over and put a calming paw on the bull's arm before Bors could draw his sword.

The captain spoke to the seal, who then talked to the tall warrior. The translation was not what Cai or any of the others wanted to hear, "He saith that Balder tis dead. Alas, the quest Arthur sent us upon tis in vain."

"Arthur?" the large white bear chieftain rumbled out. "I have heard of Arthur."

"You speaketh our language?" Aideen stammered out in surprise.

"Sometimes you learn more by listening to those who don't think you understand them when they speak to each other," the bear answered in an amused tone.

* * *

**Sir Gawain's bronze greaves hearken back to Roman military usage. Archeologists have found in the Valsgarde burial sites numerous thin iron bars that some believe were worn inside the leg wrappings of wealthier Saxon warriors to protect their shins in battle. **

**A late Roman Army cohort was the equivalent of a modern battalion and was comprised of 6 centuries of 80 soldiers each. The famous plated armor called a lorica segmentata had been replaced by the simpler and cheaper chain mail coat called thelorica hamata. The famous convex rectangular shield had been replaced with an oval-shaped or round shield. The short sword which King Alderon admired was retired and replaced with the longer bladed spathe. An iron-tipped thrusting-spear returned, along with smaller javelins for throwing. The classic soft iron shanked pilum throwing spear was discontinued and replaced by smaller lead-weighted throwing darts. **

**The Norse would display a white shield, or the undecorated back of their shield, to show that they came in peace. The olive branch is the classic Mediterranean symbol of peace. **


	21. I Am Not A God

**Chapter 21: I Am Not a God**

* * *

"**_To change the future is no simple matter, Merlin. To do so is fraught with danger._****"**

Kilgharrah says this to young Merlin in the television show _Merlin _

**We learn more about the "wizard" Merlin and also a little fluffy romance starts for the being called Waah-i-ald. **

* * *

**The Future **

With a heavy sigh, Merlin waved aside the holographically projected image of the ocean. He was troubled, because no matter what era he looked into, he still did not find this legendary island in the middle of the Great Sea where the bison, bears, gray foxes and others lived. Wiping his hoof across his eyes, he rubbed his horn in frustration as he absentmindedly picked up an old book. It one of his most prized historical possessions because it was also an enigma of time. The history book was supposedly published in the Burrows long after the cataclysmic war that destroyed much of the world's civilizations, including the great city of Zootopia.

Stepping to the window, he looked at the university students below and then the gleaming city beyond. The glorious city of Zootopia was still there reaching out for the future and still calling itself a place where "Anyone can be anything." He glanced down at the book he held in his paw, a history book about a war that never happened. "You wanted to see me professor?" a voice called from his doorway. A young adult warthog boar stood there in a white lab coat.

"The drone we sent to get the other pocket watch, has it returned?"

"No sir, it's been chasing false echoes again."

The boar wore a badge around his neck, a simple biometric ID card with his name and an insignia with Zodiac symbols, along with the name Project Chronos printed on it. Chronos or Father Time was the mythological god of time, representing sequential time or the past in the future. "Any idea what is causing these false echoes?" the old goat asked, but he already had an idea of what might be happening.

"We think they are being caused by it again."

"Didn't someone start calling it Aion? That seems appropriate after all, Aion was the old Legionnaire god of unbounded time."

"Yes sir, but we can't get a fix on where he, I mean it is, or even what he or she might be?"

"Keep trying, I am going to take a nice hot shower and then after a cup of tea, I am going to bed. Please have someone wake me when that damn drone finally returns."

The student nodded and began to leave.

"Oh, Daniel!" the professor called out. "Have someone set out some defensive gadgets. I have an appointment back in Arthurian time with a witch named Mim in a few days."

"THE Mad Madam Mim!" Daniel gushed out in excitement. "I remember Merlin having a magical duel with her in that cartoon, you know the one about Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone! She changed into different animals and you, I mean the cartoon Merlin, did too. I'd love to see that duel!"

"Daniel, there is no such thing as magic and it won't happen that way."

"Sorry sir, I got carried away." The boar apologized as he exited the room and the door swished closed.

"Magic duel…ha!"

Setting the book down, he shook off his cloak of black raven feathers before he sat down at his desk again. Time travel wasn't an exact science and it had taken years for them to unlock the secrets or at least learn how to manipulate the powers of the broken watch. Project Chronos had been developed to ensure that history evolved the way they thought it should happen. The problem was that this being or entity, he now decided to call Aion, seemed to be changing things in history too.

* * *

**489**

The sixteen-year-old in the blue jeans and black vintage rock band tee shirt stood upon a dirt trail and watched the peaceful village slumber below. He loved these villagers, the foxes and the coyotes that now slept in their huts. For several past generations and even more generations yet to come, he had and knew that he would watch over them. Whenever they seemed in danger, he would tweak some events to change the past in order to protect them in the future. With a soft sigh, he leaned against the tree next to him, as he allowed the sensations of both dizziness and fatigue from his recent time jump begin to pass. Time jumping always took a lot out of him physically and after he did so, he always needed time to recuperate.

There was the intentional snapping of a twig behind him and he smiled as he sniffed at who had snuck on him. "Greetings elder!" he whispered to the aged coyote who stood there wrapped in a blanket and stared at him in awe.

"You have come!" was all the coyote could bark out. He began to kneel before his god.

"Please don't," the young long-eared, big-footed fox looking creature said as he put his paw out to assist the coyote to stand again. "I am not a god."

"But, you are Waah-i-ald!"

"Yes, I am Wilde, but I am not a god. Actually, I'm not sure what I am?"

"We have done as you commanded us to do so many generations ago."

"I know, because I am standing here in front of you even now. Thank you for doing that for me."

"How did your mother and father…I mean, your mother was showing with a child the next morning after their marriage, was that a god's blessing?"

"Just a play in time, something a certain watch seems to have a say about. That one night of bliss here was really weeks of romance for them both."

"I do not understand, what is a watch?"

"Sometimes I do not understand these things myself. I just know that my father told me, or will tell me, that it was one of his favorite times with my mother. It was an opportunity for the two of them to be alone in a primitive paradise."

"Have you come with another command?"

"Actually…I'm finding this embarrassing, but I was wondering if I could just hang out around here for a while? I'm actually kind of lonely and very tired right now."

"What does hang out mean?"

"Stay here for a few days or weeks."

"We would be honored to serve you."

"No, I will help out like everyone else. Besides, in a couple of days, the shad will be running off the coast and you will need some help with the catch."

"How do you know that? Did you talk to the god of the sea?"

"I am after all Wilde." The fox with long ears and big feet laughed with a shrug of his shoulders. "I just know these things and no, I did not talk to a sea god."

The elderly coyote looked at him and then towards the moon. After a few moments, Waah-i-ald sighed and his ears fell flat. "Ah chief, is there someplace I can sleep?"

Waah-i-ald was happy in the days which followed. Once he got everyone to stop treating him like he was a holy object, he worked preparing the nets with the rest of the villagers. It was early in the morning and he had stripped down to his boxer shorts to join the others in the surf as they prepared to pull at yet another net full of silvery fish.

"What are those?" a coyote named Kanuna asked. Several of the males who were about his same age, had gathered around him. He slapped at their paws as they tried to feel his boxer short's texture.

"That is my underwear, leave them alone!"

"Why do the gods wear those undeewares?" another one of the coyotes asked. "Seems to me that they will get wet, why not just go naked into the sea like the rest of us?"

"Because…" he began to answer. Then he hesitated when he realized that if he told them that being naked was wrong, it would change their entire way of life. Instead, with a heavy sigh, he peeled off his boxer shorts and put them on the beach next to his jeans. "Never mind, you are right."

"You are blushing," one of the other foxes chuckled. "Why are you blushing?"

"I'm not used to being without clothes in public."

"Why not, do you want a loincloth?" a feminine voice asked. The fox rabbit literally jumped in surprise when he heard her. Snatching his tail, he awkwardly held it to cover himself. She was about his age and one of the prettiest vixens he had ever seen. His nose twitched as he looked at her, she had reddish-orange fur and the cutest green eyes. He was both relieved, and also somewhat disappointed, that she wore a blanket type poncho made from the spun inner bark of the red mulberry tree to protect her from the sea wind.

"Turn around!" he commanded her, a just little too harshly and she was confused momentarily until she looked back and saw he had on those strange things around his waist again.

"Did I offend you somehow?"

"No, it's just a… ah…me thing."

"You mean a god thing?"

"No, I am not a god," he softly sighed. "I'm just shy about certain things."

"Oh, then I will go and leave you to your work."

Waah-i-ald watched her head back towards the smoky fires. She was slowly wagging her tail behind her as she walked, which drew his attention. "Ah, Nockotia! She is most attractive for a fox," Kanuna said as he too watched her walk away.

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

"Not currently, are you interested? Do you want me to formally introduce you to her parents?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Because that is proper and since both your father and mother are not here, you will need someone to do that for you. Even a god should do things properly."

"Okay, I guess I'd like that and I'm not a god."

"Does the word okay mean yes?

"Yes it does."

"When you meet her parents, ask them if you can eat your evening meal with her."

"Why?"

"Because that will mean that you are interested in their daughter."

Nockotia had watched the god with awe as he worked the lines with the other males. He looked so much like a fox but had oversized feet and those long ears, which was not surprising to her since she knew that his father was a fox tod and his mother was a rabbit doe. She found him oddly attractive and thought he was a combination of being very cute and handsome. When he was bare-chested, she saw that he was lean and not quite as muscular as the other tods that were his age. The one thing which seemed to mesmerize her the most was his eyes, because they were the color of the spring violets. She knew that his mother had the same colored eyes.

Before they had come down to the sea, the chief had called her grandfather and the other village elders together for a council and told them that their god was going to live among them for a few days. He had told them that Waah-i-ald denied he was divine and wanted to be treated as any other fox. The elders agreed to humor their god and treat him as he requested. He had lived peacefully among them before, although the legends handed down from their forefathers seemed to say he was older.

It was late afternoon and the god who said he was not a god, now had those strange blue things covering his legs to his waist as he played tchung-kee with the other boys. A disc-shaped stone was rolled before them and they threw their long striped painted spear-like sticks towards the disc, trying to land it the closest to where stone finally stopped. She giggled as she watched him throw his stick because he wasn't that good at the game. He tried his best and was laughing with the others just like he was one of them and not divine.

Waah-i-ald had earlier asked her father if he could join her for the evening's meal and her father of course relented. After the long eared fox rabbit left, her father warned her that although he claimed otherwise, Waah-i-ald still had to be a god. "Do what he says," his father warned her. "No matter what he tells you, don't forget he can curse us all if he doesn't get his way!"

"But father, what if he wants to…you know?"

"I said no matter what he tells you to do girl! If he becomes angry, he might destroy us all."

With trepidation, she waited for him by the fire and he came from the river, having washed clean in the freshwater. He still had those strange blue things over his legs and had also pulled a tight-fitting black thing over his chest. She wore her poncho and also now her favorite shell necklace. Her fear began to dissolve when he smiled at her and she giggled as he offered her a bunch of flowers for some reason. "Am I supposed to eat these?" she meekly asked.

"Not unless you are a rabbit like my mother," he chuckled. "They are a bouquet of flowers. I was told by someone that you should always give your date flowers."

She looked at him in confusion, because the words he spoke were not in the fox tongue. He at first blinked in confusion himself, before he finally realized what he had just done and then repeated what he just said in a language she understood. "Was that the language of the gods?" she asked. "What you spoke to me before."

"No, it was a language spoke elsewhere. I am sorry that I forgot that you do not speak it here."

Looking around, she found a place to set down the flowers in front of the plank where they would eat their dinner. He noticed her nervousness and smiled again. "I only wanted to have the evening meal with you and just talk, nothing more." Then he took her paw and lifted it to his cheek, she felt the softness of his fur. "See, I really am not a god and I wish everyone would believe me. I would not or could not hurt you and your family." She smiled at him and reached up to touch his long ears.

She giggled as he closed his eyes and sighed. "They are a bit sensitive to the touch," he said. "That must be the rabbit side of me."

"We don't know any of these rabbits. I was told that your mother was the first we have seen in many generations."

"That's too bad, because I understand that they make great farmers."

Slowly reaching out, she pinched the clothing he wore over his chest fur. "What is this?" she asked as she felt it.

"It's called a shirt."

"What does it do?"

"It covers my chest."

"I can see that," she giggled. He squirmed some as her paw traced the design on the shirt. "Why do you wear it? Is it because of this painting of a bloody skull?"

He grimaced because he had forgotten he was wearing his Black Sable shirt and it had a dark red skull with dripping blood printed on it, along with the band's album title of The End. "It's not very attractive is it?" he groaned.

"Do the gods hunt ferrets?" she asked as she pointed at the skull.

"I am not a god and no, they don't." He yanked up his shirt and pulled it off, tossing it in a ball onto the ground. "That was a dumb thing to wear tonight."

She put her paw on his cream-colored chest and felt its softness. "You look much nicer this way, none of the other males wear a shi..shit.."

"Shirt," he finished her sentence.

She nodded as she first picked up the shirt and sniffed it before she took his paw as she led him to their places next to the plank. They spent the evening talking and he asked her things about herself. As he spoke to Nockotia, her father began to relax. If Waah-i-ald was an all-knowing god, he sure didn't know anything about his daughter and he seemed harmless enough.

When the meal was over, they walked along the seashore and he told her about the stars, he explained to her that they were not grains of cornmeal left by the hungry wolf that ran through the heavens. They laughed as they compared their different names for the many constellations in the heavens above. After a while, he bid her good night and she returned to her pallet among her family and he went to his own pallet near the fire were the unmarried males slept.

Just as Nockotia began to fall asleep, the vixen suddenly remembered the wadded up ball of cloth, Waah-i-ald's shirt, and that it was still laying on the dirt near the board where they had eaten their evening meal. She pushed back her sea grass blanket and walked over to pick it up. Holding it, she looked over in the distance and saw that he was already asleep. Deciding that she didn't want to awaken him, she carried it back to her pallet and put it on the ground near where she laid back down. After staring at it for a few moments, she reached over and felt the shirt again and wondered what it would feel like on her? Tentatively, she pulled it over her head and after a few attempts finally popped her arms through the smaller holes and her head out of the larger one. It had his masculine scent and felt good, almost like he was embracing her. Lying back down on her pallet, she stared up at the stars above and fondly remembered their evening. Finally, she nodded off while still wearing his shirt.

It had been a good night for them both.

* * *

**Tchung-kee, Chunkey, or the Hoop and Spear Game is a Native American game played by many tribes and nations. It is a game of skill which is played by rolling stone or clay disc across the ground while others throw spears or sticks at them in an attempt to land the spear as close as possible to the stopped stone. The Cherokees scored their game in terms of how close the stone was to certain marks on the throwing stick.**

**The stars being grains of cornmeal is inspired by the Cherokee tale of how the Milky Way was created by a Spirit Dog. **

**Kanuna is a Cherokee name, it means Bullfrog. **


	22. Eaters of the Flesh

**Chapter 22: Eaters of the Flesh**

* * *

"**They of the Northern province shall thereby be aggrieved and shall throw open the gates of the temples. The Wolf that beareth the ensign shall be captain of the companies…"**

BOOK VII, CHAPTER IV, _Histories of the Kings of Britain__, _by Geoffry of Monmouth

**Nick and Judy, along with the remainder of their fellow adventurers, find themselves thrust into a battle against a primitive and savage race.**

* * *

**489**

"I have heard of Arthur, he is called the Hammer of the Boars," the huge chain mail-clad polar bear, who had earlier introduced himself as being Gunnarr Olafsson, said as he looked down at Sir Cai. "His victory against the sea boars on the shoreline of the River Bassas is legendary."

"We carry an offer of peace on behalf of Arthur and the Seven Houses," Sir Cai replied. "But, your retainer said that King Balder has passed and so who now rules the Kingdom in the North?"

"Alas, I do not know? We were dispatched by Thane Hoelder to discover why the colonists have not been in contact with their homeland. He could not come himself, because he was summoned to a gathering of the Thing. They will decide who will become our next king and I pray that the kingdom shall not fracture again."

"Balder left no heir?"

"His son Rothgard Baldersson perished in a sea battle against a tribe of orcas several years ago."

"We've been off the coast now for over an hour," Sir Lionel interjected in a concerned tone. "A trader and a warship which are both showing symbols of peace, we should have been welcomed by the villagers and yet no one has come to the beach to greet us?"

"I have noticed that myself," the large bear answered. "Have you seen that there are ravens and crows flocking inland to the south?"

"Where they gather like that, it could mean carrion?" Tristan pondered out loud.

"Carrion?" Aideen asked.

"Dead…lots of dead," Sir Cai grimly answered.

"I will go ashore with my warriors and find out," the great white bear rumbled out as he waved for his longship to draw closer and then with a mighty leap, he bound aboard it. "You and your crew stay offshore until we return. We may have need of your ship to evacuate the villagers."

They watched as the longship ground itself onto the pebbled beach and as the warriors leap off and into the salty waves. Armored and carrying stout shields along with swords, axes, and spears, they began to fan out in small groups as they cautiously advanced inland towards where the birds had been seen.

They had been gone for several hours before finally, Gunnarr returned. "I have need of your wolves and their noses," he called out to Sir Cai. "There has been much death here and we hope that there are survivors."

Sir Cai looked at the wolves and the two powerful bulls as he considered the request.

"We came to make peace and not get into a war with an unknown enemy," Sir Bors surprisingly advised. Nick had assumed that the bull would be the first to want to charge into a battle. "Is this something we should involve ourselves in, we do represent the Seven Houses?"

Cai looked down towards Tristan, the fox was still watching the bear on the beach. "We cannot afford to insult them either," the fox finally said. "They have need of us and then perhaps we should oblige them. After all, even though we are a long way from home, any enemy of the King of the North may be an enemy of ours in the near future."

Nick watched the conversation between the knights and sighed. "Carrots, we both know that isn't going to happen and there has to be something else going on here," he whispered to her.

"But what?" the rabbit whispered back. "If there are innocent villagers who are in trouble, then we must help them out."

"I agree with Sir Tristan," Nick spoke up. "Those villagers might need aid and we should help out."

"So be it!" Sir Cai nodded. "Sir Bors, you and Sir Tristan will lead the wolves ashore. Sir Lionel and I will stay aboard, in case we are needed to defend the ship."

"I'll go with them," Nick offered. "I've had some experience with tracking fugitives, I mean lost mammals."

"I don't know?" the bear muttered. "Both you and Judy have much to answer to the Church about."

"He got his bunny pregnant, overnight!" Bors said with a shrug. "That means that he is favored by some god and he might bring us luck!"

There was a sudden jerk as the stout trading ship ground itself as close as they could to the shore and there was the sound of splashing as several of the seal sailors jumped overboard with the mooring line to pull it closer. Looking down at the waves, Sir Bors gave an aggravated sigh before he mumbled out something about now having to spend more time cleaning and oiling his chain mail again. Finally, he heaved himself over the side and with a tremendous splash, landed in the water where he stood with his sword over his head as he began to wade towards the shoreline.

"Aye, tis still too deep for the wolves it tis," the captain called out. "Lower a plank. Sir Bors will ye steady the plank still until thy companions come to shore?"

"Great, the first time I get to sail on a real boat and they make me walk the plank," Nick snickered to Judy.

"Be careful Slick," she said as she hugged him and when he lowered his muzzle, she stood on her toes to kiss him.

"Blasphemy!" the priest huffed.

Judy glanced to where the priest was staring at her in disgust and then she smiled when an inspiration came to her. "Sir Bors," she called out. "Didn't Gunnarr say that there were many dead?"

"He did, why?"

"Perhaps our priest should give them their last rites and bless their bodies to release their souls? What say you Father, surely that is the holy thing to do?"

The priest glared at her and then with a swish of his robe, retreated into the cabin.

There was the sound of the bull grunting as he held the long board in place so that the armored wolves could trot down it and into the water, which was still chest-deep to the smaller mammals.

"Come on shorty!" Sir Bors called up to Tristan, who carefully walked down the plank. He was followed by Nick and both foxes were in water up to their heads as they waded through the surf.

"I'm coming too!" Aideen called out as she leaped up onto the board, but the bull had released it and the vixen lost her balance. The armored clad fox slipped and plunged into the water, quickly disappearing under the surface.

"Aideen!" Sir Tristian frantically yelled as he and Sir Bors began to wade towards where she had sunk.

There was another splash and Judy realized that Galahad was no longer by her side. Being unencumbered by chain mail, the tod dove into the surf and swam out of sight into the deep water. He was gone for a few moments before he popped to the surface with the sputtering and gasping vixen in his arms. The fox was quickly assisted by several of the seals as he carried her towards the land.

"Fie, my helmet!" she wailed out once she got her footing.

A sailor emerged from the surf with her silvery winged helmet, which he tossed to her brother.

"Thou were not told to come, thou wert supposed to stay aboard yon boat!" her brother began to admonish her, as he waved her helmet at her like it was a weapon. "Must thou always act before thy think? Tis time that thou growth up and stop with these…this...this fantasy of being a spear maiden, vixens art not spear maidens!"

"But, I am a spear maiden!" she began to argue back, but the wild fox got between her and her brother. He also began to bark, yip, and snarl at her, while he pointed at the plank and the ship. The vixen's look of defiance wilted and her ears drooped as she listened.

"What's he saying?" Sir Bors asked.

Tristian was smirking as he watched the other fox lecture his sister and that she was more astonished at what Galahad was saying than she was at being mad. "He saith that he tis sworn to protect Judy as the mother of his god and because she hath been reckless, he is now stuck in the water and not aboard yon ship," the tod began to say and then he grew quiet as Galahad took Aideen's muzzle in his paws and touched her nose with his.

"Well?" Bors snorted.

"I'm pretty sure that he just said that he worries about her too," Nick answered. "I may not speak Old Fox, but I know that look when I see it."

"Aye," Sir Tristan confirmed. "But he hath no claim upon my sister, for she art the daughter of a chieftain and he tis some barbarian…"

"I think he is the son of that tribe's fox chieftain," Nick interrupted. "That would make the two of you equals, would it not?"

"Aye, but still…"

"Are you going to stand in the water all day?" Gunnarr called out to them. "We need to start tracking any survivors." Just as he said that there was howling and growling from the nearby woods. "Form a battle line!" the bear growled as he drew his sword.

Several gray furred wolves armed with spears and bows burst into the village, but they were not charging the bears and instead were facing from where they had apparently fled. These wolves were wild-looking and smaller than their armored counterparts who had joined the bears on the beach. With them were about a dozen seal folk, all who ran towards the bears for safety.

From the woods behind them burst over fifty brown spotted, tan-colored creatures. They were naked and running on all four paws, with mouthfuls of nasty looking teeth and stood about three feet at their shoulders. "Shunka warak'in!" the newly arrived wolves cried out in fear. One of the wolves was not fast enough and a trio of the beasts dragged him down, making eerie cackling noises as they tore into his flesh.

"Eaters of the flesh," Gunnarr growled as lifted his shield. "Fall back to the water's edge!"

Galahad called out in barks, snarls, and yips to the wolves and they now also ran towards the bears.

"What did he say?" Sir Bors called over to Sir Tristan.

"Twas not in Old Fox," the knight answered as he prepared his spear.

The creatures did not hesitate as they charged towards the large bears, wolves, and foxes on the beach.

Swords, spears, and axes met flesh and the creatures fell back, leaving well over a dozen of their own either dead or dying before the line of bears. "Bows!" Gunnarr yelled out. Several of the bears jammed the weapons into the sand, as they strung their large wooden bows. Once ready, they began to fire arrow after arrow into the milling pack of creatures before them. It was more than the creatures could take and they fled back into the woods.

"We need to get back to the ships!" Sir Bors called over to Gunnarr. "Our numbers are too few to hold if they come back with others."

The bear nodded before he glanced back at the ships. "Half of you form a battle line by me and the others get those ships afloat."

"Heave to lads!" the seal captain called. There was a large splash as Sir Lionel jumped overboard and joined the smaller seals in pushing the ship back afloat. Ropes were tossed over the sides for the refugees and the wounded to climb up onto the deck.

"Here they come again!" Sir Bors yelled as he stood by the bears. His sword was already red from the previous attack. They were vastly outnumbered as over a hundred of the large dog-like creatures charged into the bears with teeth snapping. Swords and axes hacked into their bodies and spears stabbed, but the line of warriors was surrounded as the creatures leaped into the water after those still trying to board. Sir Tristian turned and drove his spear into the foaming mouth of the monster in front of him. Blood gushed out of its mouth as it lurched and fell with convulsions while it died in the waves next to the fox.

There was a scream and Nick looked towards were Aideen had been knocked over, savage teeth had gripped on to the top of her shield and she was being jerked around as the beast shook it. Another attacker growled as it lunged past the other creature and tried to bite down on the vixen's arm. Galahad began to splash towards her, throwing his spear into the side of one of the attackers.

Nick cursed as he leaped into the larger savage creature, trying to shove it away from the vixen. He had lost his spear earlier and was now unarmed, he was even without a shield. The beast turned from trying to bite the vixen and snapped at him with its deadly teeth. As the fox tried to retreat, he slipped and tumbled splashing into the surf. "Nick!" Judy screamed in terror as she saw him fall.

Seeing its prey was helpless, the creature leaped for the kill and its jaws tried to bite down onto the smaller fox's throat. There was a loud cracking noise as the attacker's teeth shattered against the invisible shield which had formed to protect Nick. The fox felt the bracelet on his arm hum and saw the creature yip as it fell back with a now bloody muzzle full of broken teeth. Before it could flee, a huge ax slammed down upon its head and Nick looked up to see Sir Lionel standing over him. It was then that he felt the pain on his wrist and yipped as he pulled at the now sparking bracelet off, there was the smell of burning fur as it came free and fell into the surf.

Lionel grabbed him by the nape of his neck and dragged him deeper into the water to where the surf was now over the big bull's chest. Sputtering, Nick tried to stand and realized he could not touch the sea bottom. Suddenly, there was the feeling of flippers on his arm and a rope was thrust into his paw. "Climb!" the sailor yelled.

Wet and exhausted, he pulled himself over the ship's side and fell upon the deck. "Aideen?" he asked as Judy ran to him and hugged him. "Is Aideen and everyone else safe?"

"Alas, we lost two wolf warriors," the captain answered. "Sir Bors and Sir Lionel are still in the surf, but they are deep enough for my sailors to enter the fight, for the water is our domain."

Nick grunted as he stood and looked overboard, the two bulls were now climbing aboard and yet the creatures still tried to attack them. Several of the savages were trying to swim, paddling around in the surf, and then suddenly there was blood in the water. Armed with spears and harpoons, the seal sailors shot through the surf and thrust into the helpless land mammals as they swam. The few that were still in the deep water were quickly and efficiently slain.

"Nick, I thought I had lost you!" Judy sniffled as she clung to him.

"Oh you rabbits, you are so emotional," he chuckled as he kissed her between her ears. "I had the bracelet, remember?"

"But Nick, it's gone!"

"It must have shorted out, maybe that creature's bite was too much for it or it might have been the seawater?" He ran his other paw over the burnt fur which had once been covered by the metal band. He sighed because at least his skin wasn't burnt.

Both Nick and Judy's ears drooped as they heard the sounds of cackling and growling as the creatures on the beach fought and tore into the bodies of those who did not make it. "They looked like some kind of primitive hyena," he said as he watched the feeding frenzy on the beach. "But not like any of the hyenas from the Great Savannah or the Cape."

Galahad had helped Aideen pull off her chain mail and quickly looked over her few wounds, mostly they were just scratches and then he came and stood next to Judy. "He thinkth he hath failed his god," Aideen softly said to her. "He saith that I distracted him from his duty."

Judy looked at the vixen and she appeared ashamed at what she had done. Picking up her winged steel cap, she looked at it and then lifted it as if she was going to fling it overboard. "No!" Judy yelled as she rushed to the fox's side.

"Why not? I thought that I could be a spear maiden, me a mere fox!" Aideen bitterly huffed out. "I failed during yon battle. Nay, my brother tis right and I twas no more than a mere fool."

"A long time ago, I wanted to be a police officer, a member of the city guard, and I was told that I could not succeed because I was only a little cute rabbit. I was told that I could only be what I was, just a dumb bunny."

"So did thee go home?"

"No, I stayed and became a member of the city guard and I was really good at it too! So don't give up on your dreams when the first thing goes wrong."

Galahad still cast angry looks at the vixen, his ears laid flat upon his forehead. Judy walked over to the fox and took his paw in hers, pulling him to stand next to Aideen. "Tell him exactly what I tell you!" the rabbit commanded. "My son wanted him to protect both you and my husband." She paused as the vixen translated to the other fox who just listened. "I never was in danger, but there were others who were and if he had not there on the beach to tell those wolves that the polar bears were allies, then more of their kind would have died. So, I believe that he was where he was supposed to be and not here."

"Aideen, we need your friend to translate what the wild wolves are saying," Sir Cai called over to them.

Nick took Judy's paw as they listened to the Galahad talk to the wolves and then to Sir Tristan, who translated it for the others. "He tis speaking something called coyote to them and they understand, it seemeth that they are part wolf and part coyote."

"Eastern timber wolves," Nick whispered to Judy. "They are mixed blood."

"They saith that they hath been tracking yon beasties through the woods. That there twas a great war between the wolves and the shunka warak'in, that all the packs of wolves hath joined in a great alliance to drive yon beasts unto their deaths, to destroy all their kith and kindred. He and his fellow warriors hath found yon villagers where they hath taken refuge upon an island in a nearby lake, they were trapped and hungry. Twas a great battle and these wolves twas all that did not perish after they warred with the beasties and that twas the last of the shunka warak'in pack which we hath battled. He wishes us to take them up yon coast to where more of his kin doth await."

"Then northward we will sail," Sir Cai sighed. Then he looked down at Judy with concern. "Little one, just how long do rabbits have before they give birth?"

"Let's just hope my baby is more red fox than rabbit," she answered.

* * *

**This chapter was inspired by Michael Crichton's novel **_**Eaters of the Dead**_ **and the book's movie adaptation **_**The 13th Warrior**_**. **

**Arthur's battle on the shores of the River Bassas was his sixth battle.**

**Shunka warak'in or shhuhnkha Warahwalkin is a legendary wolf-like creature who some say still roams the mountains in Montana. One of them was supposedly shot in 1896 by a settler named Israel A. Hutchins and its stuffed body was displayed until it disappeared sometime in the 1980s. What our adventurers faced was the last of a large pack of ****_Chasmaporthetes ossifragus_****or or prehistoric hyena dogs, which were hunted down by a confederation of wolves. These also the same creatures which drove the bison, gray wolves and large cave bears to the shores of the sea, where they sailed to a mysterious island. **

**The Eastern Timber Wolf or Eastern Wolf is smaller than its Western cousin. DNA samples indicate that the wolves are an admixture of the coyote and gray wolf. **

**Sir Cai should be worried, rabbits do not have very long gestation periods. **


	23. Troubled Times

**Chapter 23: Troubled Times**

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"**_Bridgeport?" Said I.  
"Camelot," Said he."_****  
― **Mark Twain, _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_

**I'm not sure if it is his past or if it is his future which finally catches up with our sixteen-year-old time traveler. At least the poor guy kind of gets his first kiss!**

* * *

**489**

After almost a week living with them, the villagers still called him Waah-i-ald and despite his protest, most of them also still treated him as if he were a god incarnate. He looked down at the still pool of water and sighed, he had to admit that he was a strange-looking creature. Shorter than most of the other male foxes, he had his mother's long rabbit ears and her feet, but the remainder of his physique was all fox, including what was covered by the loincloth he now wore. His fur was the same reddish-orange color as that of his father, but where his father had a darker brownish red on his ear tips, arms and at the end of his tail, his was more of his mother's gray tone.

He caught her scent as she approached behind him and his tail began to wag. Nockotia giggled as he fell back onto the mossy bank and looked up at her with a smile. The vixen stared down at him with those soft green eyes and he saw that she was once again wearing the black tee-shirt he had given her. "Hello lazy," she said as she bent down and ran her paw through his cream-colored chest fur.

"Lazy?" he scoffed. "I helped haul all those smoked fish from the canoes back here for storage. I smell like fish jerky!"

"What is jerky, is that a food of the gods?"

"No, it is not a god food and I'm not a god," he laughed as he reached up and stroked her cheek fur. "That is just another word for dried salted fish."

"Yet you are Waah-i-ald, he who was here long ago and has come again."

"That still does not make me a god."

"Then it makes you unique," she giggled.

He gripped her arms and pulled her onto him, their noses almost touched. Jade eyes locked onto amethyst ones and he gulped in anticipation. _It's now or never_, he thought to himself as he puckered his lips and leaned up slightly to kiss her.

He didn't expect her to react as she did, her eyes widened and she jerked back. "What are you doing?" she exclaimed in a confused voice.

"I…I was kissing you, I'm sorry I should have asked you before I did it."

"You touched your lips to mine, why?"

"Wait, you don't know how to kiss?"

"I've never heard of a kiss before, what does it mean?"

"Well…ah…well when a guy likes a girl, he shows it by giving her a kiss."

"We nuzzle each other…wait, you like me like that?"

"Yes, but do you…?" He didn't finish his question as she leaned over and ran her muzzle along his and licked his cheek. "Oh!" he exclaimed as he pulled her against him and nuzzled her back, licking her cheek also.

"Nockotia!" as a stern voice called out. "Your mother needs your help."

Waah-i-ald sat up after the vixen had pulled herself away and lowered her head in submission to her father.

The older fox acted as if he was watching something in the water while his daughter quickly left, then he let out a long sigh. "I do not want my daughter to be hurt," he finally said. "You have come before and left, but please do not toy with her affections if you are going to do that again."

"I didn't…" he began to object.

"There are old tales of gods seducing young maidens and leaving them and I do not want my daughter treated so, even if you are a god."

"I'm not a god."

"You are not a fox or a rabbit either, so if you are not a god, then what are you?"

"I'm not sure what I am. I just know I'm what I am and that there is no one else like me."

"Why did you really come here?" the question was direct and delivered with a soft warning growl. "The council says that I should give Nockotia up to you, but I am a father and I love her too much to let you callously destroy her heart as you take your pleasure..."

"Whoa! Whoa! I just wanted to kiss her, not do that!"

The older fox raised an eyebrow and gave him a stern look, Waah-i-ald's long ears flattened against his back. "You are an old enough male and she is a breeding age vixen, so don't pretend to me that you haven't thought about doing that!"

Waah-i-ald blushed in reply.

"You are both of that age, don't deny that…"

"Okay, I get it. I forgot that you do things differently in these olden days, start much younger."

"Olden days, what does that mean?"

"Never mind, it's just that I like your daughter and enjoying spending time with her."

"You will leave and she will be hurt."

"Maybe I won't leave this time, maybe I will stay here!"

"You are like the wind and you will have to leave when it is time."

"Time?" the fox rabbit had practically spit the word out in disgust. "Time means nothing to me. The past, present, and future are just doors to open and pass through. I might have already left and returned, no one here would have known what I have done or will do. I have seen the future…"

"Is my daughter in that future of yours?"

"I…I…I don't know, some things I can't see. My fate is hidden from me, I can't spy upon myself."

"Then you must decide your own course, but do not toy with her affections if you are not serious." The older fox said before he finally turned away and walked off, leaving him to ponder what he really felt about Nockotia. Was he truly in love with the vixen or was it only lust?

"Waah-i-ald," she called over to him as she returned and sat down by his side. "I am sorry for what my father said…"

Suddenly, there was a slight crackling noise and a shimmering behind her as something began to appear floating in the air. It was a white object with a single red beady electronic eye. Nockotia screamed in fear when she saw it above them and he grabbed her to pull her away.

He didn't he think, but reacted, as he fled whatever it was that was hunting him. The pain was tremendous because he didn't realize that Nockotia was still in his arms when he time jumped. They came crashing down in the middle of a grimy sidewalk and he dizzily tried to sit up, that was when he heard the angry shouting.

A young wolf wearing a ragged denim vest with peace sign patches sewn onto it ran over and stopped. "Dude, get up the grass munchers are coming!" he yelled. There was smoke down the street and he could smell it was tear gas. "We were peacefully protesting when we were attacked by a bunch of union guys, some of the cops have even joined them. They are beating up on any predator they can find!"

Waah-i-ald slowly crawled to his feet, with Nockotia's help, and looked around. "Damn this must be the Sixties," he cursed. "We must be in the time of the great civil rights marches?"

"Hey Maxie, look at what we have over here!" a rough voice called out. "Hippies!"

Two large zebras were standing there grinning as they looked at the long-eared fox rabbit and the vixen. The one called Maxie had a long serrated knife in his hoof and his companion carried ax handle. "Let's skin 'em alive," Maxie chuckled as he ran towards them.

Nockotia had no idea what was going on, she was both confused and awed by what she saw around her. The tall buildings, the stone-like concrete sidewalk, and all the noise and smells overwhelmed her senses, but she could tell that the two mammals approaching them were dangerous. Flee or flight, those were her choices as she gripped Waah-i-ald's arm. She just knew he would protect her because despite what he claimed, he must be a god to have done what he just did. Her ears flicked in surprise when he barked out "run!"

The vixen began to flee but hesitated when Waah-i-ald slipped and fell. The two thugs quickly grabbed him and shoved him against the nearby wall. "What the hell are you boy?" the zebra named Maxie snapped as he shoved his victim harder into the bricks. "Running around naked, except for that thing around your waist, you damned hippies need to learn to dress properly and get a job."

"What's with the ears fox?" his friend brayed as he slapped at one of the long ears. "Are you some kind of commie weirdo?"

"Hey, I don't mean you any harm," Waah-i-ald grunted out. "Just let me and my girl go. I promise that you'll never see us again."

There was a snarl as Nockotia launched herself onto the menacing zebra's back, she clawed and then bit into the larger animal.

"She bit me!" the zebra yelled as he struggled to shake her off. He finally grabbed the vixen by her neck and slammed her down onto the hard concrete. "I think I'll cut your tail off for that!"

"No!" Waah-i-ald screamed as he dove into the knife welding zebra. The knife came forward and slammed into the tod's stomach and Waah-i-ald gasped in surprise as he felt the painful blow. In his shock, he time jumped again.

* * *

**The Future**

"Professor, we've finally got a lock on the drone and we are bringing it back now!" Doctor Sarah Longleggs called out. The maned wolf in the white lab coat watched the signal on the monitor before her. "Wait, that isn't the drone!"

Across the room, an old goat dressed in a matching lab coat had begun perusing through a table full of weapons and other gadgets. "A Wooferly PPK pistol?" he scoffed to the small gray and black-furred raccoon that was standing on the table in front of him. "You think I'm James Bond or something? Mim is just an old badger who claims that she is a witch and I just need the right toys to scare her, not kill her!" At the sound of Sarah's cry, he turned towards her.

Three mammals just appeared from nowhere, the largest was a rough middle-aged zebra dressed in a dark blue cotton work shirt and canvas pants. He was holding a bloody knife in his hoof. A reddish-orange furred teenage vixen, wearing only a slightly oversize black tee shirt with a blood-red skull printed on it, was clutching another fox looking mammal.

Blood leaked from that odd-looking fox's stomach and stained the pristine white tiles red. His oversized rabbit-shaped ears were sprawled on the floor over his head.

"Called a med unit!" Sarah yelled out as she hit the alarm. A whining noise from the alarm filled the room. "Code Blue!"

The zebra stumbled away from the vixen and the fox rabbit creature as he waved his knife while he stuttered out, "Stay away from me. Where the hell am I?"

The old goat looked at the bloody mammal on the floor and then back at the zebra. Without uttering a word, he picked up another gun from the table and pulled the trigger. A dart shot out and struck the panicked animal, he wobbled for a moment and then crumpled unconscious onto the floor just as the medical team and several armed security guards arrived. "That tranquilizer gun from the early Twenty-First Century works better than I imagined," the goat commented to the raccoon as he handed it to him.

Nockotia fell back in shock at what she was seeing and then she noticed the large female maned wolf standing there, in her eyes the wolf looked like a long-legged vixen…a fox goddess! Crawling towards her, she bowed with her muzzle in subjection as she begged, "Oh great goddess, please save Waah-i-ald!"

The maned wolf looked at the vixen in confusion, because she hadn't understood a word which the fox had said. "Professor, I think that is an ancient fox language?" she called over to the old goat.

"Get her out of the way of the medical team!" the old goat called the Professor snapped back as he rushed forward to where the fox rabbit was laying. The medical team had begun to stanch the bleeding and stabilize the injured long-eared creature.

"What do you want to do with this guy?" one of the security guards asked as he hoofcuffed the unconscious zebra.

"He looks like he might be from the late Twentieth Century, so check his pockets for an ID card. He might have what they used to call a driver's license on him and then toss him into a windowless room until I can figure out what to do with him."

Looking over at the vixen huddled in Sarah's arms, he frowned. "That shirt doesn't seem to be hers. Based on the male's loincloth and her overall lack of clothing, besides that tee-shirt, I would think that she is from one of the precolonial era villages.

"Waah-i-ald!" the vixen barked in despair as she watched the strange creatures poking at him.

"Computer active the translation matrix for ancient fox languages" Sarah commanded out loud.

Nockotia whimpered as a voice spoke from nowhere. "Activation enabled," it said in her own language.

"Now child, you are safe and so is your friend," the large long-legged fox looking wolf softly said, her strange words were translated into the vixen's language. "Can you tell us what is going on?"

"Waah-i-ald is hurt! Please oh great goddess, save him!" Nockotia desperately answered.

Lying on the floor, he heard everyone talking as if they were in the distance. Then everything began to go black as the fox rabbit slipped into unconsciousness.

The beeping sound of the monitor awoke him and he looked around, Nockotia was curled asleep in a nearby chair and there was a muscular looking wolf in a black uniform standing at the doorway. "Ah, you must be the time traveler we are calling Aion," a voice spoke from nearby. He turned to face an old goat. "I was hoping one day we might meet."

"Who are you?" Waah-i-ald asked.

"No, the question is, who or what are you?"

* * *

**Since in my last story, I used Chicago as being the model for Zootopia in the Roaring Twenties, I will continue with using that city's history in this story too. The Chicago Freedom Movement was launched in 1966, with the aim to expand the civil rights activities from the South into many of the heavily segregated northern cites. Rev. Martin Luther King and his family moved to a Chicago slum at the end of January of that year to bring attention to the poor housing conditions for minorities. After King's murder in 1968, there was a massive riot that left almost a dozen Chicago citizens dead, forty-eight more wounded by police gunfire, close to a hundred policemen injured, and over several thousand people arrested. Whole sections of the city were left in rubble from the mayhem and looting, but the South Side had escaped damage mainly because that area's two largest street gangs cooperated to control any violence in their neighborhoods.**

"**68" also featured a bloody clash in Lincoln Park, and days later in Grant Park, between the Chicago police and thousands of anti-war protestors gathered outside of the Democratic Party's Presidential Convention. This was followed by the infamous media-driven circus-like trial of the Chicago Seven, all of whom were later acquitted of their convictions for inciting a riot.**


	24. Truth

**Chapter 24: Truth**

* * *

**_Truth, that strange thing, the jest of Pilate's. Many stupid young men had thought they were dying for it, and many would continue to die for it, perhaps for a thousand years.  
_**― T.H. White, _The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King_

**The foxes are ambushed by new enemies and the Fisher King joins in the battle. In the future, Finnick worries about his best friend Nick's disappearance.**

* * *

**489**

The foxes fled back into the mountains, hours earlier and just before the sun rose in the east, they had walked right into an ambush and it had cost them the lives of four of their kinsmammals. Their assailants were not the goats or rams whom they were hunting, but sea wolves from the mainland. Bleddyn licked at the cut on his arm before the rabbit knight named Sir Gaheris slapped his muzzle away so that he could tie a torn rag around the bleeding.

"Now the wolves from overseas have allied themselves with Aldroen and the boars!" Cadoc cursed. "We must find Arthur and warn him."

"First we must stalk after them and find out their true strength," Sir Gaheris replied. "We need to know if this is a full-scale invasion or just a longship or two of raiders."

"You want us to track wolves!" Bleddyn said in an incredulous tone. "They will smell us from miles away."

"Are you telling me that you foxes are not sly enough to outwit a few howlers?" the rabbit replied. The fox frowned at the very candid like smirk the smaller knight managed to make.

"He's right, we have to find out how many more wolves have arrived," Codoc sighed. The chieftain was pacing back and forth and his tail flicked in agitation. "We will have to stay downwind, their noses are better than…" he never finished what he was going to say as he suddenly sniffed and froze. "Weapons!" he hissed out softly instead. "We have intruders!"

"Here I thought ye bonnie foxes were too bloody hard tay sneak up upon!" a challenging voice mockingly called out. "It looks like ye got your wee noises a tad bit bloodied by them shag furs!" Three small warriors slipped down out of the rocks behind them, each had a dark green and brown wool tartan covering their gray and black-furred bodies.

"Cats!" Codoc spit out almost in a disgusted tone when he saw that they were highland wild cats from the mountains on the other side of the wall.

"Aye tis true that there be nay great love tween our kind laddie," the small cat said as he stood before the fox. He was about the same height as Sir Gaheris and was weaponless. "But then our kin hath settled that feud a generation ago."

"There were wildcats in An Sionnach's army when they raided my father's lands!" the knight snapped at the cat.

"Aye, so we heard. Din ye no think that not all of the cat clans get along with each other? We kin be a wee bit cantankerous with each other too," the cat laughed. "Twas nay any of my clan who marched with the Red Fox and his bloody lot on that raid."

"Why are you three here?" Codoc asked. "Tell me the truth, cat or else!"

"We be following the shag furs," the cat replied. "My chief wanted tay know why they came?"

"How many are there?" Gaheris quickly asked.

"Five ships full of their kind landed near our lands tay the north of our mountain. They bypassed our village, instead of trying to raid it. We first thought it was because they did nay stomach tay climb into the points of our long spears and falling boulders, but our chief thought else wise."

"That would put them at close to two hundred warriors," Codoc sighed. "Not a great enough number for an invasion force."

"Aye, but they met up with another eight shiploads of wolves nay far from here," the cat added. "Tis near five hundred in all."

"Still not an invasion force," Codoc continued. "Why did they land so far north, the boars have been seen sailing along the western coast?"

"The boars and the wolves have never cooperated before," Gaheris added. "Is this a large raid to take advantage of Aldroen's war with the other kings?"

"Nay, we saw a couple of bloody rams with the wolves," the cat answered with a shake of his head.

"Why does your chief care about what they are doing?" Garheris snapped in an accusing tone.

"Tis bird hunters we are and we trade with the villagers along the Wall, our meat and eggs for iron and other goods. A war or raid against these villages would nay be something we wish to see happen, so I and my companions were sent to find oot what they were up to and if needed, tay warn Arthur."

* * *

**489**

The answer to Codoc's question of why those wolves did not join the sea boars, was found offshore in the blood tainted churning waters as a black and white skinned warrior shot under the sea's waves and towards the longship full of boars. In desperation, the boars aboard heaved their spears at another much larger beast which also bore down upon their doomed ship. Their spears hung uselessly off of the huge sperm whale's shell filled linen head armor before it smashed into their wooden ship, tossing it sideways into the briny water. Any of the boars who did not sink to their watery graves under the weight of their heavy chain mail were quickly dispatched by the orcas tearing teeth or by the hammer-like blows of their smaller steel gray colored cousins, the dolphins with their hard deadly beaks. The army of the Fisher King had now entered the war.

Not far away, Bouma shot a plume of water into the sky overhead as she surfaced near another fleet of ships which were sailing across the channel from the Green Island and toward the mountainous shores of the Wolf King's domain. Aboard these vessels were packs of lean gray furred wolves, cousins of the warriors they came to help. There were also herds of tall elk, with their distinctively large antlers, and smaller red deer. They too had been summoned to the call of war by their kinfolk.

Bouma watched the distant battle, vigilant of any longship which might have avoided its fate at the fins of the warriors. She was not suitable for combat and the northern bottlenose whale was only guiding the fleet safely towards the distant harbor. She dove again and resurfaced with a splash. The truth was she hated seeing war being waged upon the sea near her, the bodies of those who died today would litter her feeding ground forever and that thought sickened her.

Far from the battle, a middle-aged female otter in a blue cloak stood in the bow of the small boat as it sailed down a channel next to the old Legionnaire causeway which had been built across the marshy terrain of her homeland. Before her arose the fabled walls of Insula Avallonis or as the others now called the island, Avalon. It had been almost a week since she had left the court of the Fisher King, at first the king had resisted getting involved in the war between King Aldroen and the five other kingdoms. Things quickly changed after he learned of the involvement of the sea boars and that Sir Cai, who bore Arthur's offer of peace to the King of the North, had disappeared during a great storm. "The sea is vast and I fear that good Cai and his crew have perished," he had told her.

She watched as he shifted himself in his seat and wondered how he could endure the great pain he was suffering every day? The king had received his debilitating wound, what others one day call the "Dolorous Stroke", from a harpoon welded by a foolish knight named Sir Balin.

"Do not give up hope your majesty," she said. "The omens do not reveal his death, but even the fates hide him from my sight." Before her on the table was her deck of tarot cards, the upside Fool was already showing. She reached over and turned over another card upon the table, it showed a fox hanging upside down. "We are at a crossroads?" She pondered as she turned over the next card and that what that card revealed to her was quite clear, it was of a lion sitting on a throne.

"The Emperor?" the Fisher King asked as he leaned over and looked at the card.

"Someone comes who will bring stability and structure to the war-torn land," she answered.

"A High King?"

"The Fool, the Hanging Fox, and now the Emperor, so far this makes no sense! Surely there has to be some truth in these cards?"

"Someone once said that truth is a strange thing."

Tentatively she drew the next card and gaped at what was shown, it was the Lovers. Picking up the card with a shaking paw, she turned it towards the king. "That is impossible!" he cried out in surprise. On the card should have been a rabbit doe and a rabbit buck, but over the image of the buck, there was what looked like a red wine stain which gave a faint image of fox tod!

As she sat the card down, a stiff wind tore through the chambers and all the cards blew off the table. She knelt upon the floor and hesitated because the first card she picked up was the Knight of Swords. The king watched her holding it and nodded. "Then it is past time for action!" he said with a heavy sigh. "So let there be war in the seas as there is upon the land."

"Milady!" a voice called to her, bringing her from her memories and she looked over at the larger seal who had spoken. "There are travelers awaiting you upon the causeway."

The Lady of the Lake turned and saw three weasels standing there waiting. "Henry is that you?" she yelled to the older one.

"Aye milady!" he called back as he waved his walking stick.

As the boat drew closer, she frowned at the spy. "You are supposed to be watching Mordred and not roaming the countryside!" she admonished him. "That was what Sir Cai ordered you to do."

"Good Sir Cai is only the High Steward," Henry replied. "I will not spy upon my king."

"Mordred is king?" she said in surprise as she sat down. "What of Arthur?"

"He stood for Mordred at the council."

"The idiot!"

"Milady?"

"What did Merlin say?"

"Who knows where Merlin even is, he comes and goes at his own leisure."

"Another idiot!"

"Milady?" the weasel chuckled this time.

"Pull the boat to the shoreline!" she commanded the small crew. Then turning towards Henry, she added. "You and you sons get on this boat right now. I want you to tell me what the hell Arthur has done this time!"

* * *

**Present Day**

Finnick panted slightly in fear as he stared at the phone in his paw. He had just spoken to THE Mister Big, one of the most dangerous mafia godfathers of crime in Zootopia. The small shrew ruled over all the criminal enterprises in Tundratown, as if he was a king. No one really knew why the polar bears listened to the tiny shrew, but they did so with almost fanatical dedication.

Unlike Nick, Finnick had always avoided Mister Big and his gang. When he first met Nick, he knew that the fox had been banished from Tundratown for trying to swindle the shrew over a rug, which turned out to be made from the butt of a skunk… a skunk butt rug! Only Nick Wilde was dumb enough to think he could have gotten away scot-free with doing such a stupid thing, but that fox was always overconfident.

It was Judy who brought Nick's banishment to an end, at first both the rabbit and the fox were almost "Iced" as they called it on the other side of the Great Wall. The rabbit's fortuitous act of saving the shrew's daughter Fru Fru from sure death was all that kept their hides from becoming popsicles. Soon Judy and Fru Fru became best friends and the rabbit was even the godmother of Mister Big's grandchildren.

"I will find out what is going on," the shrew promised him. "Rest assured that we will find Judy and Nick."

A promise from Mister Big was as good as a promise fulfilled, but still, he worried about what his pal might have gotten himself into and why he had disappeared. Also, he could swear that fox he just met was Nick, but the tod acted like he didn't know him and who was the good looking vixen? He knew that Nick had the hots for Judy and not any of the vixens who had hit upon him at the bars when they went drinking. After a few rounds, all Nick did was tell him was all about Judy and what the rabbit was up to, it was rather pathetic. "Nick, grab yourself by the balls and get male enough to tell the bunny how you really feel," he growled to his tipsy friend one night. "Tell her the truth!"

"But she's a rabbit and I'm a fox!" the larger tod actually whined.

In the past, Nick had always displayed a sense of almost overbearing confidence, which was often misplaced. "Hell, that prick was always too cocky!" he muttered to himself. "Running around acting like he knew everything, everyone, and always hiding his bitter disappointment in what he had become."

Starting the van, he pulled back out into the traffic and laughed at himself, what fox didn't really wish things were different in his or her life? He himself had been called "foxy trash", "pelt", "shag fur", and a whole dictionary of other demeaning names in the past and it was even harder for Nick, because he was a red fox. At least as being a fennec fox, he was too cute and looked too childlike to be so verbally abused.

"Nicky boy where are you?" the small fox finally sighed out in frustration. "If something happened to you and Judy, Mister Big and his goons are going to be someone's least concern!"

* * *

**Avalon is a mystical island in Arthurian lore where he is taken to heal from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann and is also where his sword Excalibur was forged. Medieval monks in 1191, playing upon the growing popularity of Arthur, claimed that Glastonbury Abbey was Avalon and "miraculously" found the burial site of not only Arthur, but also Guinevere. "**_Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula Avaloni" _("Here lies interred the famous King Arthur on the Isle of Avalon"). **Of course, such a famous "find" led to an increase of pilgrims visiting the abbey with their offerings. This was a fortuitous find during a time when funds were desperately needed to rebuild many of the buildings which had been damaged by fire in 1184. **

**The Fisher King was lamed by the fabled "Dolorous Stroke", which was a blow from the Holy Lance and was struck by an ill-fated knight named Sir Balin. This wound was the reason for the beginning of the Post-Vulgate version of the quest for the Holy Grail. Sir Balin is also connected with his slaying of the Lady of the Lake and his drawing of the cursed Damsel's Sword. Under the curse, he battles his brother Sir Balan and both are slain. **


	25. Not by an Ax's Blow

**Chapter 25: Not by an Ax's Blow **

* * *

"**_It's not a mere matter of muscle, son. Uh, jousting is, uh... a fine skill. It-it's a highly-developed science." _**

Sir Pelinore talking to Wart in the Disney movie_ Sword in the Stone_.

**Judy and Nick continue aboard their ship, heading northward towards the Kingdom of the North. Mordred and Gawain find themselves outnumbered by a superior foe. **

* * *

**489**

The air grew colder with every day as their ship plodded behind the larger warship towards the northern islands. A few days ago, they had left the wild wolves along the shores of the ocean near a huge encampment of wolves and coyotes. It was a primitive army which would be pushing south, hunting the last of the shunka warak'in. "I wonder why this war didn't unify the packs?" Nick asked Judy as the watched the encampment stirring in the distance, you would think that it would have given them a common identity."

"With their enemy gone, they had no reason to stay united," the pregnant rabbit answered.

"How did I end up marrying such a smart bunny?"

"This smart bunny is hungry again, can you find me anything edible on this tub."

She watched as Nick trotted off towards the food bins, Galahad was standing near the railings with Aideen and the vixen was giggling at something the handsome tod had said. The two tall bull brothers, Sir Bors and Sir Lionel, were cleaning the links of their chain mail armor and so were the two surviving spear wolves. Tristian was plucking away on his small harp, telling an old fable about a woodcutter and his ax to amuse a few of the villagers whom they had saved earlier and stately Sir Cai was discussing something with the ship's captain.

She felt the priest's eyes upon her and saw that he was staring at her with pure hatred. "Witch!" he had accused her of being earlier. "Spawn of the devil…whore of evil…," those were just a few of the many names he spat at her. "May the gods protect us from thy evil ways!" Resting a paw upon her belly, she sighed. He was right about one thing, her carrying Nick's child was unnatural and that disturbed her a lot.

"I still haven't come up with an excuse to tell Stu when we get back!" The fox said after he had come back with a small bundle of pickled radishes.

"If we get back," Judy sighed as she pulled the heavy wool blanket tighter. "I'm worried."

"Tsk…tsk…don't worry your little head about that," Nick chuckled as he sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder, she snuggled against him. "You've got me to watch out for you and then there is Galahad. Hey, if he is Galahad then can I be Lancelot?"

"Didn't Lancelot have an affair with King Arthur's wife Guinevere?"

"You don't think I can seduce a bear?"

"No!"

"Such a low opinion of your poor suffering husband, is that because I am a fox?"

"Oh, I know that you are a fox! Every inch of you is pure sexy vulpine."

"I've heard that about you rabbits and your libidos."

"It's all true, Slick!"

"Alas, I've unleashed a monster! What's a poor fox to do?"

"Find me some clean water, I'm thirsty."

"That wasn't what I had in mind, Carrots."

"Go on you goofball!"

Nick's tail was happily wagging as he got up and left her. She turned her head slightly and saw the priest staring at her again and it made her worried. Reaching into the small bundle of belongings next to her, she hesitated when she saw the broken pocket watch. Maybe when Nick got back they would try it again, but then she remembered that the watch would change their place time, but not their location. Time jumping aboard a boat in the middle of the ocean was not a smart thing to do.

* * *

King Mordred of the House of Arth's small army was short of trained scouts, this was because many of the red foxes were still bitter about the death of Sir Bedivere and refused to come to the aid of King Cyflym or any of the House of Cwningen. The weasels, stoats, and ferrets tried to fill in for the larger canid, but they lacked the endurance to keep up with the fast-moving bears and their allies. The result was predictable and led to the inevitable clash between a superior force of the boars and the army's overextended advance guard.

The battle was short and fierce before Sir Gawain arrived and ordered a withdrawal back into the ranks of the vanguard. Mordred was angered at first, insisting that they advance and engage the foe in battle. Before he could rush off and led his warriors to the probable doom, calmer more experienced knights finally prevailed in making him realize that not only were they outnumbered, but they were also being outflanked. The bears withdrew to an old hillfort to regroup and there the king took counsel from his knights within a large tent that had been erected in the center of the camp. Mordred stood there looking at a map he had unrolled upon his campaign table.

"We flee before their likes!" Sir Tegyr growled in frustration. The young inexperienced knight fumed as he sipped his bowl of mead. "One bear is worth a dozen of those swine. Nay they are just mud rooters with armor!"

"No matter how big you are, it only takes one well-placed blow of an ax to cut you down. Take the mighty oak tree…," Sir Pellinor began to lecture the much younger knight.

Gawain put a steadying paw on the elderly bear's arm as he tottered slightly. Pellinor was once a renowned warrior, but old age had dulled his senses and he tended to ramble. "Come sir, take a seat by the table," he offered as he led the feeble knight to a chair.

"Your majesty, might I suggest we withdraw back to the river," another knight recommended. "It is better ground for our shield wall and we cannot be outflanked." This set off another round of arguing among the knights.

"Everyone leave me!" Mordred finally snapped. "Everyone out but Sir Gawain, I need to think!"

"But your…" Sir Tegyr began again.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" the king bellowed, sending everyone but Gawain scurrying. All had left but Sir Pellinor, the elderly bear was now snoring in the seat.

Mordred looked over at the knight and smiled. "Remember the stories he used to tell us when were cubs?"

"About the Questing Beast?"

"Aye, he kept all four of us entertained for hours, much to the amusement of Sir Ector and my father."

"You and I, along with Arthur and Guinevere, we thought they were the funniest stories. I miss those days cousin."

"I do too, but they have passed."

"Aye, they have."

"I angered the boars by killing those prisoners," Mordred sighed out as he shook his head. "That was a mistake."

Gawain didn't reply, but watched the inexperienced king as the other bear looked down at the map in frustration. Finally Mordred looked up at him and asked, "What would Arthur do? Of all of us, you know him the best."

"Fool them and then attack."

"What? Fool them how?"

"The mist will rise in the early morning," another voice answered and both Mordred and Gawain looked over in surprise at the elderly knight. "The warmer air over the water in the lake below will encounter the cooler surface temperatures of the land and a mist will form. Every farmer should know that!"

"We thought you asleep!" Mordred chuckled.

"I was, but someone said something about the Questing Beast," Pellinor laughed. "Now your majesty, what did Sir Ector tell you about the boars and why they do not like fighting at night?"

"They don't see well in the dark!" the king exclaimed.

"They don't see worth shite in the dark," the older knight chuckled.

"Keep the fires banked tonight," Gawain interjected. "We can prepare in the dark. Near dawn add wet boughs to them to make more smoke, it will add to the rising mists."

"And then we attack!" Mordred said with relish.

"Not directly, we march out and attack their flank in the dark when they are not prepared."

"They will panic and flee into the other camps, causing confusion!"

"Right, we keep pushing fast and don't let them form a shield wall."

"They might break?"

"If the gods are willing, they will break and run."

"If they don't?"

"Then the bards will sing glorious songs about our deaths!" Sir Pellinor answered. "I'm sure it will be a grand tune at that!"

Mordred just let out a long groan.

The mist did rise and it was both thick and dense, just like old Pellinor said it would be. They had gathered and marched as silently as they could down the backside of the mountain and along a ravine that led into the woods, which shielded them from the boar's sight. A few retainers had stayed behind to stroke up the fires enough to add wet pine boughs which caused not only more smoke, but covered their scents.

Once everyone was in place, they began to move towards the unsuspecting camps. The boar's pickets had died from bolts fired with an almost silent twang from some of Arthur's new crossbows, it took two of the small weasels to carry one and in their small paws, it was like one of the rabbit's larger ballista. But the bolts did their deadly work.

With a mighty roar, Mordred led the charge into the camp. There were squeals of surprise from the unprepared boars as they scrambled to grab their shields and weapons. The bears and their allies tore through their ranks like a steel tsunami of death. Blades flashed in the dark, spears stabbed, and axes hacked as they fought their way through the camp, leaving a trail of dead behind them. The boars broke and fled.

In the dark mist Sir Tegyr screamed his war cry as he rushed forward with the others, he waved his blade above his head and he held his shield before him. He enthusiastically charged into what he had convinced himself was a glorious battle. Before him, a boar appeared out of the mist and the bear slashed down with his blade, catching the smaller warrior in the neck. Blood spewed everywhere and he drew back in surprise as it splattered across his face. To the right of him, he heard someone scream, before the meaty sound of an ax chopping into flesh silenced the cry. The words of old Pellinor haunted him, _"No matter how big you are, it only takes one well-placed blow of an ax to cut you down."_ A bear cursed to his left, but he could not see anyone else in the thick billowing mist and he began to panic. He lowered his sword, still dripping blood from the now-dead boar, and tried to peer into the mist. Fear crept into his mind and he jumped at the sound of someone screaming in pain not far away in the dark.

"Keep moving boy," a familiar voice called out from behind him and he looked to see Sir Pellinor standing there. "The battle is to the front of us, so lay on lad! Follow Mordred's war cry, you will be safe near him and Gawain."

"What about you?" he said the elderly knight.

"I'll catch up, I just need to catch my breath," the old bear wheezed out. "Now move along, I'm going to just rest here for a moment and then I will find you."

As the sun burned off the last mist of the dawn, Gawain looked over the field of destruction. Bodies lay everywhere and the despairing cries of the wounded filled the air. Five boars fell for every one of their own, but toward the end of the battle the sea boars managed to withdraw with enough order to salvage a sizeable contingent of their warriors.

He looked up as first one and then another of the black-winged fiends began to circle in the sky above and then as if from nowhere, the crows and ravens began to descend to feast on the dead and dying.

"We've won again," Mordred grimly stated. "So why does it feel like we've lost?"

"It's called survivor's guilt, an old friend of mine. It will pass away with time."

"Our losses were not too bad, considering…" the king continued. He stopped when he saw Sir Tegyr and few other warriors carrying a body towards them.

"Tis Pellinor," Sir Tegyr called out with grief. "He was felled not from a blow by an enemy's ax, but by age. Alas, his noble heart finally just gave out."

"Aye," the king sighed. "And so he joins Sir Ector, King Uther, and his other valiant friends in Annwn, where he will feast in the Great Hall of Heroes. We will bury him and all of our dead upon the crest of the old fort."

"That seems a fitting place of honor," Gawain sadly agreed.

"So come cousin, remember what Sir Ector used to tell us?"

"There is time to mourn the dead after the war is won."

"And that a commander should praise and commend his warriors for a battle well fought!" the king added with false bravado. "Come let us speak comfort and encouragement to those who survived, for this is far from over."

* * *

**The song of the woodcutter and his ax is based on an Aesop's Fable called The Honest Woodcutter. In that story, a woodcutter loses his ax in a deep pool of water and it is recovered by the god Mercury, who first "finds" a gold ax and then a silver one instead. When he asks if either of those are the lost ax, the woodcutter says no. The god rewards the woodcutter's honesty with both of the precious axes and the original. Aesop's Fables were popular in Rome and would have been known by the Romano-Briton royalty.**

**Sir Pellinor or King Pelinore in T. H. White's ****_The Once and Future King_****,**** is a bumbling, but also endearing old man who cannot give up his search for the "Questin' Beast" for fear that the beast will die from loneliness. In earlier writings, the knight actually beats Arthur in combat and is later slain by Sir Gawain in revenge for the killing of that knight's father King Lot. **

**The first mention of the Questing Beast is in the ****_Suite du Merlin_**** and the story ****_Perlesvaus_****. It was described in many ways, such as having a snake's head, a leopard's body, the haunches of a lion, and the feet of a hart. Another description is that it was instead beautiful, pure white and smaller than a fox. Later it becomes the impossible hunting quest for a comical Sir Pellinor. **

**Sir Tegyr held the honor as cup-bearer for King Arthur.**

**Annwn is the old Celtic land of the dead. In the poem ****_Preiddeu Annwfn_****, Arthur leads his warriors into Annwn seeking a magical cauldron. **


	26. Just a Boy

**Chapter 26: Just a Boy**

* * *

"**Looking at the cake is like looking at the future, until you've tasted it what do you really know? And then, of course, it's too late."**

Merlin to Arthur in the movie _Excalibur_

**Waah-i-ald finds himself detained by an old goat and Project Chronos. He then takes some advice from a crusty old little fennec fox, before the villagers finally find out the truth. **

* * *

**The Future**

"No, the question is who or what are you?" the old goat in the white lab coat asked the fox rabbit lying in the hospital bed.

The half breed, who the villagers called Waah-i-ald, realized that he was strapped down, "Why are you detaining me?" he snarled, instead of answering the question. "When and where am I?"

"You are at the University of Zootopia, a long time after you and your parents were born and as for why you are being restrained, I just wanted to talk to you and those are to keep you from running off."

"Really, you think that these straps will keep me from time jumping?"

"Probably not, but it will keep you from taking your cute young girlfriend, if that is who she is, with you when you do leave."

The teenager frowned as he looked over at Nockotia, the vixen was still sound asleep. "What did you do to her?" he growled in an accusing tone. "If you hurt her..."

"She's not hurt, but we gave her a sedative to keep her under. You know, she really shouldn't know too much about the future."

He struggled against his bonds and cursed before he finally sighed and relaxed in defeat.

"Now that your temper tantrum is over, are you feeling any better?" the goat asked.

"I was stabbed, but why don't feel any pain ?"

"You've been healed already. I have to admit those medical Nanorobots are wonderful things and they didn't take long to repair your injuries. You should know we are not your enemy."

"So says the guy who has me strapped down!"

"So, I guess you aren't going to tell me your name? My name is Professor Jeremy Whitehorn and I am with Project Chronos, we study time travel."

"That is something I know about. As for me, just pick a name! I've been called Wally, Waah-i-ald, Ricky, and even Thomas, just to name a few."

"You can add Aion to that list. That is what we have been calling you around here."

"Okay, I have no idea why you keep using that name?"

"He one of the old Legionnaire's time gods, the god of the past, present, and future. So what do your parents call you, you know your mother Judy Hopps and your father Nick Wilde?"

"You know who my parents are?"

"You can't hide your DNA records, especially when you are half fox and half rabbit, and besides their DNA is in the pocket watches. Which brings me to the question I have been dying to ask, how and why did you create the watch?"

"I didn't make the watch."

"You must have, the biomechanical coding of your parents DNA into the object is magnificent and it took us decades before we could replicate it ourselves," the goat reached into his pocket and pulled out an unbroken watch. "It took us even longer to figure out how to manipulate it for our own use in time travel."

"I didn't make the watch, now let me go!" He struggled again in frustration at the bonds.

"We can't do that!"

"Fine!" the fox rabbit on the bed growled and then he just disappeared!

"He time jumped and left her behind?" the guard at the door exclaimed in disbelief. "He just abandoned her!"

* * *

**Not So Distant Future **

Waah-i-ald landed with a grunt into the soft sands of a great dune, he shook his head and used a paw shelter his eyes from the bright rays of the sun as it shone above him. Steadying himself from the dizziness he was experiencing, he finally sat up and saw the city of Zootopia in the distance. He looked down at his clothes, he was in a blue hospital gown made from disposable paper and it only covered his front.

"Bout time you got here champ!" a voice called out. There was a fizzing sound and he turned to see what he first thought was a fox kit, before he realized it was an elderly fennec fox sitting in a lawn chair under a beach umbrella while sipping on a large beer. "I'd offer ya a brewsky, but you dad says you're gonna be too young. However, the way I figure it, you can't be a day younger than fifteen hundred."

The small fox tossed him a bottle of water instead, which he quickly opened it and took a few gulps. "Who are you?" he finally asked the stranger.

"I'm your godfather, your dad's best friend. Damn, just call me Uncle Finn and I got you a present," the small old fox lifted his paw to his muzzle and made a loud whistling sound.

The vixen was now in a bright yellow sundress as she ran over the top of the dune and launched herself into his arms. "Nockotia!" he exclaimed as he hugged her. "I was going to jump back and get her!"

"You already did and told me yesterday to bring her to meet you here today," Finn chuckled as he watched the two foxes hugging each other, both of their tails were wildly wagging with happiness. "Well, an older and wiser version of you did."

"Waah-i-ald…Waah-i-ald…I was so scared," she muttered in Old Fox as the vixen nuzzled and licked him. "I was afraid, but you came back for me."

"I didn't," he began to protest, but she didn't understand him because he hadn't spoken her language.

"Yeah, ya did sport!" the small fox commented before he burped. "Also, the Professor ain't your enemy."

"He sure didn't prove it today."

In the future, the old goat picked himself off the ground from where he was pushed by the fox rabbit when he reappeared. His assailant was much older and faster, almost like a whirlwind in a black cloak. He had knocked out the guard with a single powerful kick before he scooped up the vixen in his arms and time jumped again. The Professor groaned as looked down at an object lying next to him and realized it was the pocket watch he had been clutching before he was attacked. Gently he picked it up, he saw that it was damaged and cracked. Holding it up, he examined it and then compared it to the other one he wore around his neck. "Damn it, he was right that he didn't make the watch!" he cursed in surprise because the two watches now matched exactly. "We did!"

"So now what am I supposed to do?" the fox rabbit named Waah-i-ald asked the older fennec fox. He realized that from the way the city looked, that it must be the middle of the Twenty-First Century.

"When yer up ta snuff, take her home."

"But…" he didn't finish his sentence because the vixen in his arms pressed her lips to his.

"Kiss," she happily exclaimed before she nuzzled him again.

"So are you two...ah, getting serious?" Finnick began to ask. "You should know we foxes mate for life?"

"I've only known her for a little over a week! Gods, you're sounding just like her father!"

"Couldn't tell from the way she is snuggling up to you."

"We've only started kind of dating and she was my first kiss earlier today."

"Well she was only wearing an old rock band tee shirt yesterday and it wasn't quite long enough to cover everything, so I also bought her that dress."

"Yeah, her tribe isn't much into clothing."

"So they are nudist? You know, like those dumb naturalists that hang out over at the Mystic Springs Oasis in Sahara Square."

"No, they just don't wear them."

"Look kiddo, don't rush your relationship too fast, you two are young and need to take things slow. Get to know each other more before you take that step. Hell, you have plenty of time!"

"Time? Ha!"

"You know what I mean by that Sport. Don't be so cynical, you're acting like your dad did before he met your mom."

"I already have seen and been through a lot in my life, so don't you start to try to lecture me on being old enough to make my own decisions."

"Okay Sport, that's fair enough. You might be an all-wise time traveler, but is she?"

Waah-i-ald glanced over at the vixen in the yellow dress. Nockotia was now lounging in the sand and happily pawing at with material of her dress as she watched the two males talking in a language she didn't understand.

"She's an innocent," Finn continued. "I'll bet she has grown up in a remote place with her family, safe from all the cares and dangers of the world around her."

The teenager's long ears drooped at what he heard because he knew that the small fox was right.

"Tacos!" Nokotia suddenly barked out.

"What?" he asked her in Old Fox.

"I want tacos, I'm hungry and they are so tasty."

"I think she is saying that she wants some more tacos, I had to feed her something last night," Finn laughed. "She ate six of them, her table manners have something to be desired and we won't talk about the bathroom incident. I guess they don't have toilets in the era where she comes from?"

"No they don't," Waah-i-ald sighed out in resignation.

"Tacos?" Nokotia asked again

"I'd offer to take ya both back into the city for some tacos. However, you're in a hospital gown with your butt naked tail sticking out and someone might call the cops on us."

"Yeah, not to mention my big ears and feet tend to draw attention."

"Tacos?" Nokotia asked again with a pout.

He shook his head no at her.

"I figured ya got corn where she comes from, so I pulled off a recipe for ya," Finn laughed. "Got it from one of those back to nature websites online, you know the ones with all that old fashioned country ways of doing things."

"Great, so now I am going to invent the taco?"

"I sure someone had to."

"Where are my dad and mom?" he finally asked the small fox. "Why aren't they here themselves?"

"Ain't time for you three to meet again," Finn answered as he finished his beer. "You'll meet up when its time."

"Are you ready to go home?" he asked Nokotia as he put out his paw to her. She nodded and took his hand.

"Bye kiddo!" Finn said as he saluted his godson with another beer. "See ya later, Sport."

* * *

**489 **

Waah-i-ald time jumped with the vixen and they fell into a heap by the pond. He was dizzy again and sighed as he crawled to his knees.

"Where the hell have you been with my daughter!" he heard a male voice snarl at him. "We've been worried almost to death for her after you disappeared when that white devil came! You two have been gone for many days!"

"I missed my time jump?" he groaned in pain as he put a paw to his forehead. "I wanted to come back no more than fifteen minutes after we left."

"Daddy!" Nokotia cried out as she stumbled to her feet and ran to hug him.

The older fox hugged her back and then he held her at arm's length as he looked at what she was wearing. "You look like a giant sunflower," he commented. "Where have you been?"

"We fled from that thing to a terrible place where there was smoke and fire. Then two black and white striped devils attacked and stabbed Waah-i-ald," she answered in such an excited rush of words that she became breathless. "Then…then we ended up in another place which was white like heaven! There was a really, really tall fox goddess there and she said that she would save Waah-i-ald!"

A crowd had gathered around her and listened to her story. Waah-i-ald started to object to her, but then he just sighed again as he watched her.

"I feel asleep and when I awakened, I was in a village full of gods! Huge huts which reached up to the heavens and noise, so much noise! There was a small fox god who fed me something called tacos and gave me this to put on! He then took me to find Waah-i-ald."

"So he is a god!" the elder proclaimed as they all turned to look at the teenager in the torn blue hospital gown.

"NO I'M NOT!" Waah-i-ald snarled. "I am not a god." He staggered to his feet and felt a steady paw grip his arm. He looked over and saw Kanuna standing next to him.

"But the miracles Nokotia saw?" the elder asked in a confused tone.

"There were no miracles. That white thing is a probe...a spy that came from the future, the long distant future and meant us no harm. I did not know what it was and fled, I can go into the future or the past. I didn't mean to take Nokotia with me, but I did and we landed in a future time where there was a…" he paused for a moment when he realized that they would not know what a riot was. "It was a bad time, a kind of war and I got hurt."

"But you're not hurt now?" Kanuna asked.

"The doctors…the healers, healed me," he snapped back as he ripped off the hospital gown to show where they had shaven his fur for the surgery and the reddish scar which remained. He was so upset that he didn't realize that he was now standing naked in front of everyone in the village, including Nokotia. "Then I escaped and found Nokotia with my uncle. After that I brought her back home!"

"You did all that and you are not a god?" someone asked.

"I AM NOT A GOD…I'M JUST A BOY!" he yowled out in frustration and angrily stamped one of his big feet. "I'm a sixteen year..ah, winters old boy!"

"We can all see that!" a she coyote commented. Waah-i-ald realized what she meant and his ears blushed as he grabbed his tail and pulled it in front of him.

"He's shy too," Kanuna chuckled. "Someone find him a loincloth."

"So if you can tell the future, is the corn crop going to be good next year? We had problems with the beetles this year getting into the squash," someone called out.

"I can't tell the future, I can only go there!"

"Then can you go there and come back to tell me?" the coyote asked.

"It's not that easy!"

"Why not, you and Nokotia just went all over the place?" someone else asked. "Is that is only because she is your girlfriend?"

Waah-i-ald just sighed as he stood there holding his tail in front of him. "Is it too late to go back to everyone believing I'm a god?" he sullenly whispered.

"Yes," the elder chuckled. "Now, everyone let us leave this poor boy alone. He's tired and ornery."

"I'm not ornery!" Waah-i-ald barked out as he stamped his foot again.

"Sixteen winters?" the elder mused. "That explains a lot, now go take a nap and I'll have Nokotia bring you something to eat and drink when you awaken."


	27. Those Damn Foxes

**Chapter 27: Those Damn Foxes**

* * *

"**_If the world's only gonna see a fox as shifty and untrustworthy, there's no point in trying to be anything else."_**

Nick Wilde in _Zootopia_

**Nicolaus remembers something of his past. King Aldroen offers a bounty on foxes and Bleddyn finds himself being hunted by sea wolves.**

* * *

**Present Day**

If Nicolaus and Maria were expecting a sightseeing tour of the marvelous and modern city called Zootopia, they were wrong. The cat driving the sleek black sedan, whipped though the traffic as he drove from the airport, through Hyenahurst and then southwesterly into Savannah Central.

Their driver, Agent Topas Minos with the ZBI, listened intently as the two foxes in the backseat excitedly talked as they looked out at the windows at all the tall buildings and many animals on the sidewalks. He was beginning to realize that Nicolaus had either forgotten all about living in the city or he had never been here before. That is until the fox suddenly exclaimed, "Look there is the Twin Horns! My mother took me up there to the viewing platform when I was really little!"

"You remember your mother?" Maria asked. "Are you starting to recall things?"

"I vaguely remember being up there with her, she wanted to take my picture…" he grew silent and his ears flattened.

"What's wrong?" Maria softly asked as she took his paw.

"There were these other kits and the guard said we had to get out of their way. He yelled at my mother about us damn foxes were making others sick. My mother was sad that she didn't get the picture. I don't remember too much more, except I have a feeling that my mother has always been disappointed in me for some reason," he sadly sighed out. "That and for some reason, I hate the scouts?"

Minos glanced back in the rearview mirror and frowned, not at the now dejected-looking tod in the backseat, but a stoat and a hare in a small car which were trying not to be spotted as they tailed them. Ahead of him was the university and he pulled down the school's busy main street. Students were walking along the sidewalks and he had to break a time or two when one ran in front of the car to get to the other side. He hit the car's horn, while he slammed on the brakes when a female rhino stepped into the road in front of them. The coed seemed oblivious about where she was walking as she continued to peck away with her large hoofs on her big smartphone.

Finally, he pulled down a side road towards the back of the campus and in front of them was a huge six-story, modernist style building surrounded by a chain-link fence. He looked back in the mirror again and saw that the car was no longer following them. Standing at the entry gate before them were two armed guards in black fatigues, a timber wolf and an arctic wolf. Rolling down his window, he flashed his badge at the timber wolf who began to type into a tablet, which he passed to the cat. "Please sign in here, agent," he said as he waited for the cat to sign the screen.

The white-furred wolf paused and sniffed the air, before quickly looking into the back window of the car. "Wilde is that you?" he barked out in surprise. "You've come back, but where's Hopps?"

"What do you mean?" Minos quickly asked as he looked up at the canine officer. "Has something happened?"

"Gary!" the timber wolf snapped at the other guard. "Enough, you know we aren't supposed to tell anyone!"

"What? He's that ZBI guy and he should already know that the fox and rabbit have gone missing. Look, he has Wilde in the backseat!"

"Sorry sir, you can go on in now," the timber wolf stated in a forced professional manner as he pressed the button to open the gate.

Minos looked at the guards in the car's side mirror as he drove by and towards the parking lot. "Did something happen to Nick?" Nicolaus asked from the backseat. "You promised me that I could meet him."

"I don't know what is going on," Minos admitted with a low growl as he watched the two wolves bicker. "We'll find out inside."

* * *

A small stoat watched from the top of one of the academic buildings as the car entered into a secure building. "They must have Wilde and Hopps in there!" he said to his companion. "Should be call Mister Big?"

"Not yet, let's figure out what's going on in there first," his partner answered. The white-furred arctic hare in a dark blue suit was perusing through a college brochure. "Yo Chuckie, what the hell is an MS in Foresight?" he asked.

"I don't know Sammy, maybe it's some kind of eye doctor?"

"Why would that department be behind locked gates with armed guards? They also have something called an MT in Studies of the Future and there's also an MS in Emerging Technologies."

"You think Wilde and Hopps are going back to college? Most of them damn foxes are so dumb that they can barely read and Hopps is so tuned in to being a super cop, I can't see her changing her job."

"Wilde's actually a very smart guy. Hey, you think maybe he's physic and can tell the future or something?"

"Pfft! Chucky, you are so dumb sometimes!"

* * *

**489**

Bleddyn glanced back at the other foxes as they scurried across the hillside and away from their pursuers, they were being hunted. The sound of an occasional howl, led to their desperation as they trekked southward away from the mountains and towards where they hoped they would find Arthur's army. Behind them, another round of howling told them that the sea wolves had found their trail again.

His clan's chieftain suddenly stopped and cocked his head slightly as he sniffed the air. "We've been outflanked," he growled towards the smaller hare standing behind him. "They've got us trapped."

"Up the ridge!" The rabbit named Sir Gaheris yelled. "At least up there we'll have the advantage of the high ground."

The foxes scrabbled up the rock-strewn hillside, just as a pack of the wolves began to gather below. Belddyn's ears flattened as he looked down and saw that they were outnumbered. He briefly wondered whatever had happened to the three wildcats. The cats had disappeared earlier and struck out on their own.

"It was a fair chase!" one of the wolves called up toward them. "But it is over, come down and die." The chain mail clad warrior stood in front of a cross-shaped red banner which showed a sword driven through a lamb's skull. What was even more hideous was that there were three fresh skinned black and gray pelts hanging from it along with a dozen foxtails. Oddly enough, there were also two tannish tails, which looked like those of a fox, also hanging from the banner too. "The Ram King must really hate you foxes. He has offered me a gold coin for each tail we bring to him and with all of you up there, we will be rich!"

There was growling from his companions and Bleddyn joined them as they heard the laughing and snickering from the sea wolves gathered below them.

"At least it is a good day to die," Cadoc said in a fatalistic tone. Bleddyn had to agree with him as he looked up at the clear blue sky and the sun's rays brilliantly illuminating the nearby majestic mountains. There was the sound of a stream nearby and the splashing of the water down the rocks was soothing to his ears. "I'm sorry it came down to this my lads!"

The sudden sounds of swords being beaten against shields broke the peaceful silence and the howling began again. He looked down at the wolves below and each of the warriors wore a mail coat, they also each held stout wooden shields, and were armed with swords, spears, and axes. His clansmammals had no armor, only their shields, spears, and knives.

"What are they waiting for?" Sir Gaheris cursed. "Do they really think we will come down there?"

Slowly the warriors below began to form a battle line. It was not exactly a shield wall since there was little chance that the smaller foxes would try to fight that way. _Sixty-one wolves!_ Bleddyn realized as he counted the warriors below them and they were less than twenty. _This is going to be a massacre. _

"Let's take as many of those bastards as we can with us!" Cadoc growled out. "We will meet again when we drink from Kitsune's cauldron on the Great Meadow, so die well my brothers!"

Bleddyn closed his eyes and said a small prayer to the Fox God before he tightened his grip on his shield. He opened them in surprise when he heard jingling noises and the sounds of hoofs upon the dirt trail below. The boasting and laughing quickly turned to panicked shouting and screaming from the wolves below as stallions in silvery armor charged into their ranks. The soldier's long iron-tipped lances pierced easily pierced the wolves' mail and most of them fell under the first charge.

Leading the armored clad soldiers, was a handsome chestnut stallion and the knight had pulled off his helmet so his mane was flowing freely behind him as he charged. In his hoofs was not a lance, but he carried a sword in one and an iron war mace the other. A wolf fell back, with his shoulder shattered by the war mace and yet still another lost his right paw to the slashing blade.

"Farbiorn!" the knight yelled as he turned to face the wolf who had mocked the foxes earlier. "You and your crews have been condemned by the Church for your acts of piracy and raids upon the holy pilgrims."

"Damn you Sagramor and your church!" the wolf howled in anger as he charged forward with his shield held before him. "I'll eat your heart for my dinner!"

The knight stopped and drove his sword into the ground beside him as he awaited the attack. The sea wolf snarled as he leaped at him and stabbed, only to find that his blade glanced off of the knight's heavy scale mail armor. The stallion, however, had seized the top of his shield and pulled it aside. The heavy mace slammed down upon the wolf's iron helmet, sending him reeling backward in pain. Before he could recover, the knight swung the mace back up and caught Farbiǫrn under his chin, lifting him off the ground with a sickening crunch.

Before the foxes could charge down to join the fray, it was over and most of the wolves now lay dead upon the ground, but not one stallion. Six prisoners huddled together as they awaited their fate and the four wolves who were too wounded to stand, were quickly dispatched by the soldiers.

"Greetings to you good knight!" Sir Gaheris called out as he hopped down the steep hillside. "I am Gaheris of the House of Cwningen."

"Sir Gareris, I have heard of you good sir," the stallion called back. "You were friends with the valiant Sir Bedivere. I'm surprised to see you in the company of foxes, especially after what your father did?"

"His death is something that I must atone for in my own way."

"Alas, the Church can be strict in its doctrine, but Sir Bedievere and your sister did commit an unforgivable sin."

"Sometimes the Church is too strict I fear, for love has now become a sin. Did Arthur send you to our aid?"

Sir Sagramor shook his mane before he answered the hare's question, "My scouts saw the wolf raider's banner from afar and although we are hunting other blasphemers, I knew that this was our chance to rid the world of Farbiǫrn and his followers. They will have much to atone for now that they stand in judgment before the gods."

"Milord," one of the soldiers called out as he brought the two tan tails to the knight. "These were hanging from the banner, they are jackal."

The stallion picked up and sheathed his sword before he walked over and towered over the two remaining prisoners. "Where and when did you kill the owners of these two tails?" He simply asked as his companion tossed them before the dejected-looking wolves. "I will offer your lives in return for the truth."

"Milord," one of the captured wolves quickly called out, as he bowed in submission before the knight. "Two days ago, we found them camping in the woods. Lord Farbiǫrn said that they had to be some kind of fox, even though they did not look or smell like one. We attacked and killed them, but it cost us four of our warriors to their poisoned knives."

"So the jackals have split up?" a large soldier standing near the knight mused. The black-furred stallion was taller than the knight and had a scar on the side of his muzzle, his heavy accent indicated that he was a Chauci barbarian from the coastal mainland. "This will make our mission more difficult."

"That it will, but we now know that they have come this far north," Sir Sagramor agreed.

"We are really releasing the prisoners, milord?"

"I promised to spare them, so turn them over to the foxes."

The foxes growled in anticipation of revenge, but Sir Gareris called out, "Don't kill them! We must take them to Arthur for questioning."

"Take our brother's tails and the pelts of our valiant friends from that banner!" Cadoc growled out. "Then remove that rogue's head and cut off all of his follower's tails, we will place them upon his own banner."

"Then what should we do?" Bleddyn asked.

"You and Eifion will return it to King Aldroen!"

It took Bleddyn and Eifion several days to carefully creep up upon the Ram King's army. The king had made camp and was awaiting his allies before he continued his thrust into the mountains. Aldroen was awoken early in the morning by the guard and he scowled in anger as he stared at what they were pointing at, for thrust into the center of a nearby hillock was the banner of the raider Farbiǫrn. The sea wolf's head had been impaled upon the top of the cross-shaped pole and tied to its arms were more gray and black wolf tails than he cared to count. "Damn foxes!" he cursed as he pulled his purple silk cloak tighter to ward off the morning chill. "Damn them all to hell!"

* * *

**Nicolaus is remembering the 1989 Distemper outbreak which gripped Zootopia that year. Since I have based my version of the city of Chicago, the city and its surrounding suburbs, reported more than 2,200 people infected with the measles in 1989. Eight people died, seven of them under the age of five. The vast majority of those infected were from the poor minority communities.**

**Yes, you can actually earn a Master's Degree in Foresight. The University of Houston describes the field as: **_"Professional futurists emphasize systemic and transformational change as opposed to traditional forecasters and planners who focus on incremental change based on existing conditions and trends."_

**Cauldrons held a significant place in ancient Celtic lore. The Pair Dadeni, also known as the Cauldron of Rebirth, had the power to bring back the dead and may have been the inspiration for legend of the Holy Grail. **

**The Chauci were an ancient Germanic tribe that lived near the Elbe River. The stallion would be an ancestor of what would become in our reality the Frisian horse, the favored mount of many knights.**


	28. News

**Chapter 28: News**

* * *

"**_They rush across the boundaries, carried over by wings of oars, by arms of rowers, and by sails with fair wind. They slay everything, and whatever they meet with they cut it down like a ripe crop, trample under foot and walk through."_**

Gildas _'De Excidio Britanniae'_, Chapter 16

**News is brought to our adventures from afar. King Aldroen also receives news and hatches a new risky plot. **

* * *

**489**

The stout wooden trading ship wallowed after the sleek longship as they both sailed towards the northeast. The further they sailed, the colder the weather became, and as day followed day, Judy's belly grew larger. "It looks like you swallowed a melon, Carrots!" Nick softly snickered as he put his paw upon her baby bump before he reached up and pulled the blanket he wore like a cloak tighter against the chilled air. "Are you warm enough?"

Judy nodded as she looked out at the seemingly never-ending expanse of sea and sky. "How are your lessons going?" she asked. "Old Fox seems to be an awfully complex language."

"Yeah, a word might mean one thing or another depending on your body language. Galahad is trying to learn our language, it seems easier for him."

"He is sort of funny to watch when he tries because he is so used to using his body when he talks. It seems like he is overly dramatic in his movements and delivery. Sometimes it looks like he is making a sermon when he speaks."

"Maybe we should have named him Piberius instead?"

"That fox could preach up a storm when he got going."

"I was thinking about baby names, what would you think about naming him after my great grandfather?"

"Richard seemed like a great guy, I'm sorry that we couldn't save him from being killed in the Happy Town Riot."

"I guess some things are just destined to happen no matter how hard we try to change them? I was hoping that the letter I left him would have warned him, but it didn't. "

"Richard Nicholas Hopps, I like that name!"

"Hey there Mrs. Wilde, our baby is going to be named Richard Stuart Wilde."

"You want to name him after my father too?"

"I figure if we did so, Stu wouldn't kill me for getting you pregnant and then bury me in a carrot patch somewhere?"

"I'm not worried about dad as much as I am Pop-Pop, he might have a heart attack when he finds out that his grandson is part fox!"

"Yeah, what does he say every time he sees me? Oh yeah, we foxes are red because we were made by the devil!"

"Nick, do you think we will ever get back home and what will happen to us when we do?" Judy suddenly asked, her ears drooped and he could smell fear. "What happens if we don't go back?"

"I don't know?" he sighed as he looked into her frightened eyes. Then he answered her question with a confident, but false, bravo. "But no matter what will happen, the two of us will face it together!"

"The three of us," Judy said as he took his paw and placed it on her belly. Nick could feel the baby moving and looked at her in wonder.

"Whore!" a familiar voice softly grumbled. Judy heard him but didn't even bother to glance at the priest. "Faithless witch!"

She wasn't the only one who heard the black-robed red deer. "Give me one good reason not to toss old sourface overboard?" she heard Sir Bors comment to his brother Sir Lionel. "Maybe he can preach to the fish on this way down to the bottom of the sea?"

"Whale!" the sailor at the bow called out. "Tis heading our way!"

"Aye lower the sail lads and bring her about!" the skipper yelled. "Gillyson, you speak their language, go and find out what he wants."

"Aye captain," the seal replied as he stripped off his warm clothes and dove into the cold sea.

The huge sperm whale breached and blew out a stream of water from his blowhole as it seemingly wailed, squeaked and moaned towards the small seal.

A few minutes later the seal clamored upon the larger beast's back and called back to the ship. "He was sent by the Fisher King to find us, they think we perished in the storm," he yelled. "The Lady of the Lake told him that we were just lost."

"She reads the cards," Sir Cai said. "It is uncanny what they can tell her."

"Tis witchcraft and someday she will have to face the Church's wrath," the priest snapped out in a disgusted tone.

"Everything is a sin to you priest!" Sir Bors snorted out.

"There is a war on the island again!" the seal continued to call over to the ship.

"There is always war," Sir Cai sighed. "Arthur and the Seven Houses will handle the sea boars or the raiders from over the wall again."

"Nay Milord, the Ram King has allied himself with the sea boars and King Lot is dead, the clans attack the wall. King Aldroen has invaded the lands of King Maelgwn and the sea boars lay siege to the Hare King's warren."

"Aldroen is a fool!" Sir Cai growled out in anger. "I would gut him myself if I had the chance!"

"The king summons us home!" the seal continued. "The Fisher King has ordered us to return."

The longship had drawn up to them and Gunnarr listened to the conversation. "Does he know what happened at the gathering of the Thing, do we have a king?" he called over to the seal.

"There is a new King of the North," the seal answered after he talked to the whale. After a few moments, he continued translating the big mammal's words. "There is a minnow on the throne? That cannot be right, maybe he meant a mouse? He said it is a very tiny creature who sits upon the throne."

"Is it a shrew?" Nick yelled to the seal.

"Aye, it is!"

"A shrew sits upon the throne?" Sir Lionel asked in confusion. "Who would follow a tiny shrew?"

"You would be amazed how loyal polar bears can be to a shrew," Nick answered with a shake of his head as he thought about Mister Big and his bear gangsters. "That explains a lot."

The large whale moaned and boomed again.

"He said he is to tow us back home," the seal standing on the larger mammal's back as he translated. "The Fisher King wants Sir Cai to lead the House of Arth to war."

Little did they know that the bears had already crowned Mordred as their king and that the House of Arth had already marched to war?

* * *

Aldroen stared at the war banner, which his soldiers had brought into the camp, the bloody head of the wolf raider Farbiorn and the tails of his warriors told him that his attempt to hunt down the foxes had failed. Those red devils still harassed his supply lines, forcing him to finally take camp until he could resupply his troops.

He was out of fine wine and so the vinegary swill that his soldiers drank was in his cup. He held the precious silver and gold adorned goblet in his hoofs and admired it again by the candlelight. It was a family relic which dated back to when they served with the Legions and his father claimed it was a gift from one of the mighty Caesars. After taking a sip, he grimaced in disgust at the drink's taste and dumped it out upon the grass by his camp chair.

"Any word yet from Sir Locinna and his cohort?" he asked his aide-de-camp_._ The other much younger ram was his sister's only son, who was named Constantine, was fussing at a she-goat about stains on one of the purple silk capes that the king liked to wear. Aldroen was the youngest of his father's children. His older brother Rodrick should have inherited the crown, but the young lamb "accidentally" fell from the ramparts one night and perished. His sister was named Martina, after the patron saint of the Holy City. She was married off to an older lout of a ram named Cador and she died giving birth to her only child. With his own sons and wife long dead after so many years, Constantine was the closest Aldroen had to an heir.

"No my Caesar, I've sent scouts but they have not returned."

"Are the wolves are still lurking in the mountains before us?"

"Aye my Caesar, but they do not attack en masse. They raided the camp again last night, but were easily fought off."

"The sea boars should have landed by now and will start pressing them back towards us."

"Can they be trusted? I fear they might turn on us once Maelgwn has been defeated."

"No, but they will stay allied with us at least until Arthur is destroyed."

Aldroen set his cup down and sighed as he watched the flame of a nearby candle flicker and dance. The night before, he had listened as a small priest in black robes delivered coded message from the Bishop of Londinium. It was a multipart oral message, which unknowingly also sealed the messenger's own death.

After the young thin rabbit had repeated his message several times, enough for the ram to be confident that he fully understood the real meaning of what was being delivered, Aldroen called his senior guard, Vitus over and commanded him to take the priest out for some "refreshments." Outside, he heard the small messenger briefly struggle before there was a soft crunching noise of his neck being snapped. "Dead mammals tell no tales," was the old saying.

The news from his cousin, the bishop, was somewhat bittersweet. The good news was that the Church in Londinium would recognize him as Caesar and ruler over the whole island. But, then there was a warning that the jackals, the Children of Anubis, had come north on some unknown mission with Sir Sagramor and his centuria of soldiers following in pursuit. These jackals were the companions of the assassin he had hired to kill King Cyflym's son, so he could fool the Hare King into thinking it was the foxes who were the murderers and demand that they outlaw the House of Llwynog. He knew that this was something that King Maelgwn would not allow and that it would have led to war between the House of Blaiddand the other six royal Houses.

"Damn Lot!" he cursed as he leaned back as he watched the candle flame. "That bull messed up everything by hunting down the assassin." The upside of Lot's action was he got himself killed and that created even more chaos, but he was hoping that the bulls would join him too in outlawing the foxes.

What began to worry him was the question of why the Children of Anubis were coming north, was it because they did not think they got paid for their deceased member's service? He had paid him in full, but that money could not have been delivered back to Londinium and so it was surely hidden somewhere in Caer Camlann. Were the others coming north to demand payment again or his life?

"Milord!" a voice called from in front of the tent. "Tis a scout with a report for you."

Pushing the tent flap aside, Aldroen angrily stared at the guard. "I am not to be addressed as milord, but as Caesar," he snapped at the ram. "You better remember that you oaf or should I have your centurion remind you with the whip?"

"By…by your command Caesar," the startled guard stammered out as he quickly gave a salute by placing his right hoof is over his heart.

"Well, send him in you fool!" he commanded. A small mountain goat in a ragged tunic slipped by the ram and bowed. "Report!"

"My Caesar, I have news from the Western Coast," the small goat said in a hushed tone. It was evident he feared what he was going to report. "The fleet has been destroyed."

"Destroyed? How did that happen?"

"Whales and orcas under the order of the Fisher King attacked the ships, most were destroyed and the survivors took refuge north of the wall."

"Damn it, the Fisher King never involves himself in our affairs!"

"I have more, great Caesar," the goat added as he cowered in the tent's corner.

"Spit it out you fool!"

"The wolves of the Green Island have landed and they are marching to King Maelgwn's aid."

"How many?"

"I do not know, but there were more boats then I've ever seen before."

In his anger, Aldroen seized the first thing he could grab and tossed it at the small goat, who baahed as he ran. The ram cursed when he realized it was the silver goblet and he had dented it. For a moment, he felt like his whole world was beginning to collapse.

Sitting down, he held the now damaged cup up again and let out a long sigh. He knew in his heart that it was his destiny to rule this island, but these lesser fools keep interfering with his plans. Then he had an inspiration when he remembered the old story of the Barbarian Conspiracy, back when the local soldiers on the wall rebelled and allowed the barbarians to cross and ravage the land. They pillaged their way south and almost to Londinium before the Flavius Theodosius came with his legions and defeated them.

"Call my officers!" he yelled to Constantine. "Tell them to have the troops pack to march in the morning."

"Are we going after the Wolf King?" the young ram excitedly asked as he ran back into the tent.

"No, we march to the wall!"

"The wall?"

"We will bring down the wall and then stand back while the barbarian clans, the boars, and the sea wolves battle Arthur and the rest of the Houses. Then we will destroy the survivors and like the Legions of old, bring order to the chaos!"


	29. Constantine ap Cador

**Chapter 29: Constantine ap Cador**

* * *

**_Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,_**

**_And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome,_**

**_And rolling far along the gloomy shores_**

**_The voice of days of old and days to be._**

Alfred, Lord Tennyson – _Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur_

**Arthur learns of a young ram, the hope for the future of his royal House. That young ram has a strange friend who helps him get through the dark days of his youth. **

* * *

**498**

The rain had fallen throughout the night and Arthur trudged through the mud into yet another small village, above him, the clouds hung heavy in the gray sky. There were ruts and puddles in the well-worn trail upon which he and his army were traveling, for the once smooth roadway which the Legionnaires had so painstakingly made, was now torn up and the stones used for the crude dry-stacked walls which lined the surrounding fields. "They art just ahead milord," a fox called to him. The red fox looked in great distress at what the scouts had discovered in the village. Several of the pitiful looking villagers peeked from their hovels as they watched the warriors pass. They were mistrustful and most did not show themselves, those few that did had a haunting look which victims of war often display.

"Bedwini, just who is the lord of this land?" he asked a portly badger who walked beside him.

The friar in the brown robe paused for a moment and pondered the question before he answered. "I believe these are the lands of Sir Cador, so we must have entered a part of the Ram King's kingdom."

"One of Aldroen's nobles, I would guess he went off to war with his king?"

"I doubt it, milord, he is rather old and somewhat feeble. However, his son Constantine is Aldroen's nephew and one of his officers."

The bear looked at the village again, the stone and waddle huts were in poor condition and the fields seemed to have been burnt and abandoned. Then he saw the church or what remained of the small stone church, it too had been burned. The foxes were gathered before what was left of the doorway. "Why would the boars burn a church in Aldroen's kingdom?"

The foxes scurried out of the way as Arthur entered the ruins of the building and the bear drew a sharp breath at what he saw. Strapped across the holy altar, was a fat old ram who had been stripped naked and shorn. He had been tied down face first upon the wooden table and there was blood everywhere. It was a ghastly sight because someone had cut him along his back to expose his rib cage and then each rib had been meticulously separated from the backbone. As if that wasn't enough, they had pulled his lungs out as if to make it appear he had a pair of bloody wings spread out upon his back.

"Sir Cador!" the friar hissed in surprise as he crossed himself. "They have sacrificed him, tis the blood eagle!"

"Why the hell did they do this to one of Aldroen's family?" Arthur growled.

"There tis more milord!" a scout called from the doorway. "They art behind the church."

Arthur followed the fox around the building and withdrew in horror at what he saw hanging from an old oak tree, six foxes ranging from elderly to just a kit were strung upside down. Their torturers had pierced the heels of the victims and threaded ropes through the holes. They then strung them upside down to die a slow horrendously painful death as the blood ran down to their hearts. "May the gods save us from whoever did this!" Arthur softly cursed.

"Their tails milord," a fox almost whimpered as he looked at the tree. "They cut off their tails!"

"Get them down and bury them properly!" the bear growled. The other warriors had gathered nearby and watched with angry eyes. "Find me the boars who did this, they shall pay for such acts of cruelty."

"They were not boars," a weasel called. He and several of the scouts were looking at tracks in the ground below the tree. "Wolves did this milord."

"Wolves?" Arthur asked as he joined them by the tracks. Then he looked back towards the village again before he commanded that all the survivors be gathered in front of the burnt church.

It was a sorry looking lot of ewes, deer, and even a few rabbits who had been gathered before the army, they coward and shivered together in fear before the rows of armed warriors. "Who killed Sir Cador and the foxes?" Arthur demanded as he towered above them.

"Twas raiders sent by the Wolf King," a ewe baahed out pitifully. "They said that they were sent to punish us for our king's invasion of his lands."

An elderly roe deer doe huffed as she joined them. "Those weren't King Maelgwn's warriors," she snapped at the ewe."I have seen their kind before when I was a child living in one of the boar settlements along the coast. These wolves came from overseas and call themselves the Wílkas. At that time they were warring against the sea boars and had plundered the village where I lived."

"But they told us that they were sent by the Wolf King to punish us for the war!" another villager protested.

"King Maelguwn rules over the House of Llwynog," the doe patiently sighed out. "So why would his warriors torture those poor foxes and take their tails? No, they needed proof that they killed the foxes."

"A bounty milord," the friar spoke up as he pondered the doe's words. "Someone must be offering a bounty on foxes."

Arthur looked over the pitiful villagers and their poverty. He finally gave out a long sigh as he reached into a small bag he wore around his waist and pulled out a silver denarius, one of the few precious coins he still owned. "Here, this should be enough to buy the village food before you starve." It was more than generous.

"You are Arthur!" the doe said as she caught the coin. "The Pendragon, the one who legends say will heal the land!"

As he stood there in the trail, it seemed that the darkness parted as the sun broke through the clouds, and a beam of light illuminated the bear dressed in the almost golden-colored bronze armor of the great Ambrosius, which now shone in the sun's rays. Behind him waved his father's white banner with the golden dragon and next to it, another warrior held up a makeshift banner made using the scorched tapestry of the Meek Lamb and the Mighty Lion from the church, it had been affixed to a fire darkened pole. Arthur stood there in his entire marshal splendor, he was tall and handsome in his armor, and to those around him, he looked like a warrior saint.

"Arthur…" the villagers whispered in awed tones as they knelt in the mud, even some of his own warriors knelt. "The Pendragon has returned!"

The bear blinked in surprise at the intensity in their voices as they spoke his name, they were so filled with renewed hope. "I'm Arthur, but I am no king," he objected as he reached down and took the hoof of any elderly ewe and helped her stand. "I am no king, only a warlord who leads the army of the Seven Houses."

"No, you are much more than that!" the old doe cried out. "I was the midwife for Lady Martina when she gave birth to her son Constantine. Both she and her child should have died that night, but she managed to deliver him. As she held him close to her chest, she prophesied in her dying breath that he would one day see the dragon return to drive out the Troynt boar and bring peace back to the land.**"**

"A dying mother's dreams," Arthur sadly muttered. "I'm sure my mother had such dreams for her son before she too died."

"Promise me!" the old doe cried out as she frantically seized his massive paw. "Promise me that you will allow Constantine to live, he is a good lad!"

* * *

**498**

Constantine both hated and feared his Uncle Aldroen. He had only entered his uncle's service because he dreaded what the Ram King would do to his father if he had refused. His father Sir Cador was the opposite of his Uncle Aldroen, the much older ram was both fat and jolly and was always entertaining others in his great hall. When he was a young tup, he would often find his father in the fields working with the common villagers. Every evening he would swill his ale as listened to any traveler with news or while a wayward minstrel sang a good song.

The young ram's childhood was a good one, but it came to an abrupt end when he was just twelve. It was on a rainy day when his uncle's henchmammal Vitus showed up the several soldiers demanding that his father send him to enter into the king's service. Constantine knew his father was both heartbroken and helpless to stop them from taking him away from his happy home.

He was taken to an old Legionnaire camp, which his uncle had rebuilt, and there he was forced to train with rams much older than himself. They were taught discipline and to march, march, march, and march again! Their instructors said that he had to learn to march at least twenty miles within five hours with a full load of equipment. After that, he was taught to fight at first with wooden swords, sticks and wicker shields. Vitus often was his sparring partner and the young ram knew that the older warrior enjoyed hurting him in an almost sadistic manner.

It was late one night and he was still in pain from a brutal bout with Vitus when he had taken refuge from the training camp in the ruins of the old family villa. The moon shone upon the marble-clad walls, for Aldroen did not let the villagers strip the precious stone to be crushed and made into lime. Leaning against the wall, he began to sob in despair of where his life had taken him. "Whatcha crying about?" a voice asked.

Constantine looked up as he wiped his eyes with this arm and saw that there was a fox standing there. "Who are you?" he demanded. "My uncle doesn't let anyone in this place."

"Why not, they are just old ruins?" the other boy asked as he stepped out of the shadows. The fox was wearing an old fashioned Legionnaire's helmet and had oversized strange looking feet. "A reminder of a past long gone that will never return."

"Who are you?"

"I'm just a traveler passing through this land, no one special and certainly not the nephew of a king."

"How do you know who I am?"

"Everyone around here has heard of Constantine ap Cador, nephew of King Aldroen. So why were you crying?"

"I wasn't…"

"Sure you were… I cry sometimes too. Life can really suck."

"What does suck mean?"

"It roughly means that it isn't very enjoyable or fun."

"Then life does suck!"

"Hey, do you know how to play Tabula? I've got a board, dice, and stones!"

"Is that like Ludus duodecim scriptorium, I used to play that with my father?"

"Kind of, but it is easier to play. Come on, I'll show you how."

The two boys played the game for hours until it was time for young Constantine to go back to the barracks.

Whenever the young ram could get away from the camp, he would run down to the old ruins and his friend, who called himself Ricky, was waiting with the game board and they would play and talk. The strange fox in the old helmet helped him make it through many a bad day.

"Your uncle's guard, you know that mean ram…" the fox began to ask one evening.

"The bastard's name is Vitus."

"Yeah, that guy. You know that he is only mean to you because he is jealous."

"Jealous?"

"He thinks that he should succeed your uncle on the throne, not you."

"My uncle has said nothing about me being his heir?"

"It's kind of obvious, he has no children of his own and you are his only direct relative."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"Be careful around Vitus, he means you harm."

"I'm kind of at his mercy during training, but he would not dare my uncle's wrath by hurting me too hard."

"Speaking of Vitus he is coming this way, I think he is looking for you."

"Damn! You'd better leave," the young ram turned around to find that Ricky was already gone.

"Boy, what are you doing here by yourself!" the rough-looking ram demanded as he strolled through the ruined Vestibulum and into the roofless building where the younger ram was standing. "You are the king's nephew and don't you know that you are always in danger? From now on you will not go anywhere outside of the barracks without an escort, do you understand me?"

"I wore my sword…" Constantine began to object.

"You call what you wear a sword? That is just a toy and I'm surprised that you don't cut your precious little hoofs trying to draw it."

"Leave me alone!"

"Come on you little ewe, draw that sword and show me what you can do with it!"

"This isn't funny Vitus!"

"Who's trying to be funny? Come on show me what you can do!" the larger ram drew his long sword and swung it lazily at the younger ram, who almost fell as he stumbled backward to avoid the blow. "Come on and fight!"

Constantine drew his sword, it was much smaller in comparison, and he brought it up just in time to block a bone-jarring slash from the larger weapon. Vitus twisted and brought his blade hissing back, slapping the flat of the blade against the younger ram's sword arm. The sudden pain caused Constantine to drop his blade and it noisily clanked as it hit the broken tiles. With another swing, the blade hit him upon the side of his face sending him sprawling. Tears began to form in his eyes and he sniffled loudly.

"You're no ram! You're just a frail little ewe!" Vitus laughed. "Now you are crying like a baby!"

There was a loud thud as a chunk of stone fell from the roof and hit the large ram upon his head. Now it is well known that all-grown rams have naturally hard skulls, but the stone's size was large enough to knock Vitus out. Constantine looked up at the roof and saw the fox waving to him, but as he did so his helmet slipped off his head and fell with a metallic thunk upon the tiles below. The young ram watched in surprise as two long ears appeared in the moonlight before the fox disappeared into the shadows.

He picked up the helmet and looked around for his strange long-eared friend, but he couldn't find him.

"Constantine!" his uncle called for him, jarring him from his memories of the past. Aldroen was waving at him from down the muddy road, upon which the soldiers were now marching northward. Vitus was standing next to the Caesar and frowned when he saw the young ram pull on the much modified old fashioned Legionnaire's helmet that Constantine had found that night in the old villa.

* * *

**The dreaded blood eagle was a horrendous way to die and was reputably used by some Norsemen as a way to sacrifice a victim to their one-eyed god, Odin. "**_They now had the eagle cut in Aella's back, then all his ribs severed from the backbone with a sword, in such a way that his lungs were pulled out there." – The Þáttr af Ragnars sonum describing the murder of _King Aella of Northumbria. **They also tortured their victims in the manner which I described was used to kill the foxes.**

**Wílkas is a Proto-Balto-Slavic word for wolves. **

**Tup is a Scottish word for a ram. **

**The Troynt boar, also known as Twrch Trwyth, was a magical boar that was hunted down by Arthur and his warriors in the Welsh tale ****_Culhwch and Olwen_****. **

**Tabula was a Roman board game similar to backgammon, as was the older game Ludus duodecim scriptorium. **


	30. The Whale Road Home

**Chapter 30: The Whale Road Home **

* * *

"**_I am Wind on Sea,  
I am Ocean-wave,  
I am Roar of Sea"_**

From the ancient Song of Amairgen, by the Irish bard Amairgen Glanglun

**Judy and Nick, along with their companions, find themselves being towed behind a whale and Galahad tries to tell the story of Waah-i-ald. **

* * *

**489**

The afternoon sun glistened upon the bluish-green ocean waves as a huge grey behemoth slowly rose to the surface of the water once again and blew a gusher of moist vapor from his blowhole. The large sperm whale was patient as he awaited the mammals aboard their tiny wooden boats to rig a tow line. There were scars along the whale's jawline, circular abrasions, which one of the seals explained were left by the tentacles of giant squid. "They dive deep for their prey and grasp it in their jaws," a sailor explained. "Then the real battle begins, but the whale usually wins."

For Nick and Judy, the prospect of the large whale towing their ship was far from unheard of in the future. The large seagoing mammals were instrumental in moving barges full of goods across the wide expanses of the world's vast oceans and it was considered commonplace. However, in these more medieval times, it was a new concept and it took a lot of ingenuity to figure out how to harness their small ship behind the huge colossus.

The harnessing of a whale's seagoing power didn't find its beginning until several hundred years later, at first with peaceful trade and then as weapons of war. After participating in several of the land dweller's seemingly continuous conflicts, the whales learned the folly of serving the land mammals during their apparent fanatical quest to kill each other over what the long-lived whales figured was just some silly reason or another. Initially, they towed armed barges bristling with archers around like floating castles, but then the large beasts just decided to quit and swam off for the remainder of those wars. They were not to be seen again by either side until it was long over with.

Not to be deterred, generations after generations of landlubbers figured out how to build even larger sail-driven warships, then steam-powered ships, and finally their deadly huge steel dreadnoughts. For centuries, wars continued on the sea's surface as nations periodically fought each other, while the sea lords just watched the insanity. Then someone figured out how to build an underwater self-propelled vessel, but the whales felt that this still wasn't too bad until the invention of the deadly torpedo.

After a few of their innocent brothers and sisters were accidentally killed or wounded by these new deadly weapons, or by airplane delivered bombs designed to sink the so-called submarines, the sea lords had enough and harnessed their own versions of these torpedoes. Within months, the warring nations found that their warships were not safe either on or below the waves, as they were swept away by the ocean-borne natives. War upon the high seas quickly came to an end, although it continued on the land and in the air above the blue waters.

For the whales and their sea living brethren, the insanity of war seemed to be inherent in the land mammal's DNA. But all of this was in a time yet to come and for now, it took all the excess rope from both ships to finally be able to rig a long enough tow line for the large whale to grasp in his mouth and begin pulling the small trading ship behind him. After unloading the villagers onto the sleek longship, they said their goodbyes to their new companions and began their trek homeward.

Aideen was enthralled with the speed the ship was now making as it bobbed behind the whale and she ran up to the bow and threw her arms wide as she let the wind blow through her fur. In her excitement, she almost toppled off and was it was only Galahad's firm grip upon her waist which steadied her. "Does that remind you of a movie we once saw?" Nick snickered into Judy's ear as the watched the vixen and the tod. "I just hope there are no icebergs around here, that movie didn't end very well for the hero."

"Slick, we're being towed by a whale!" Judy giggled as she poked the fox in the ribs. "Have you ever heard of a whale hitting an iceberg before?"

"No, but I'm sure he'd be too embarrassed to admit it to anyone."

"Silly fox," she sighed as she snuggled closer into his warm arms.

"You know Carrots, you're getting awfully big."

"That's your fault lover."

"No, I mean aren't you getting really close to your due date?"

"Almost, it could be any day in the next couple of weeks. We don't have a doctor to tell us exactly when I should be due."

"So, who's going to deliver that not so little guy? I took first aid training, but I doubt Clawhauser is around to call for an ambulance, and even if he was, we'd still have to wait for them to invent the telephone first."

"There is always Aideen, Galahad, and Tristan to help."

"I wouldn't count of the bulls or Sir Cai for much assistance and the seals keep telling me that you need to have the baby in the water as their females do."

"The priest is out!" both of them said together.

"What if our little guy gets too big to come out?"

"I don't know," she answered as her ears drooped and she looked worried. "But I know that he will be alright."

"So tell me my wise bunny, how do you know that?"

"Think about it you silly fox, our son left us those bracelets at the village and we saw an engraving of him on the monolith, so we know he will be fine."

"My concern is if you will also be okay?"

That night after they listened to Tristan strum on his harp and sing a few melancholy love songs. After he was finished, Judy asked Galahad to tell her what he knew about Waah-i-ald.

Galahad began his story in his halting language, sometimes lapsing back into Old Fox when he did not know the proper phrase or word, and so Tristan patiently helped him by translating those words, "He came to us in our time of need when my great, great grandfather's peaceful clan was in the way of a… war…war raid, against the coyotes by a pack of western wolves. We foxes were hunters, living on the birds we killed along with all the plants and insects we could gather from the land. Our clan moved around as the seasons changed and we found ourselves fleeing from the battle. In the end, we were trapped, along with the remaining coyotes, under a tall stony ridge as the wolves began to attack.

"So you didn't live with the coyotes back then?" Nick inquired.

"No, they had come from the west and were fleeing the wolves."

"You just live so naturally together now, but go on."

Galahad struggled with trying to keep telling the story in the new language he was learning but finally, he abandoned all attempts and slipped back into Old Fox, with Tristan translating. "He saith that in their legend, the foxes were trapped with nay hope as the cruel wolves began to advance upon them with gashing teeth and mighty spears. They knewth that the wolves would cruelly slayth all the males and taketh the females and the children as their slaves and it seemeth that all were surely doomed. There twas no way they could defeat the larger wolves and there twas no place to hide. In desperation, they fell upon their knees and wailed for their gods to cometh and save them from their enviable and final fate."

"It twas the mighty Waah-i-ald who heard their desperate pleas and his heart twas melted by their prayers. With thunder and lightning, he appeareth before them amongst a great billowing cloud of smoke, his fur shimmered as if it twas made from silver in all its glory and all wert blinded by his magnificence. At the sight of the god, the wolves' hearts were seized with fear and they doth fled, but then their Great War chief Kiyiya strolled forward and with a blood-curling howl challenged the god. He twas a mighty gray furred giant of a beast, who towered above everyone else and hath many war scars upon his body. Around his shoulders twas a cloak made from the tails of the many wolves and coyotes he hath slain in battle, they wert too great in number for any mortal to count. In one paw twas a huge spear he called Slayer and in his other twas a great stout wooden club stained red by the blood of the innocents, which he calleth Basher."

"A fearsome warrior," Sir Bors grunted.

"That tis not what he saith brother!" Aideen objected.

"Kiyiya tried to rally his warriors to attack Waah-i-ald, but the god brought forth a great rain of fire crashing down upon their heads and they died in the hundreds. Finally, the battle hearts of the wolves twas broken and they beganth to flee. In his anger Kiyiya, charged at Waah-i-ald, who stoodth there weaponless before the great brute. The wolf threw his spear with all his might, but Waah-i-ald stepped aside and it missed him. With a mighty howl, Kiyiya leapt high into the air as he brought his club down upon the god, but it shattered into dust. It was twas then that Waah-i-ald raised his paw and lightning shot from it, striking the huge wolf and Kiyiya shook and fell at the great god's feet."

"Was he dead?" Sir Lionel asked as he stopped sharpening his sword.

"That twasnt what he saith," Aideen sighed out.

"Nay, for Waah-i-ald told them that...that one shalt not kill unless one hath to do so in order to protect thy own life or those of thy kingdom."

"Spoilsport," Lionel chuckled.

"Isn't that part of the old Knight's Code?" Sir Cai asked.

"At the sight of their fallen war chief, the other wolves fled and Kiyiya lay stricken, as if he twas slain, for three day and three nights. He was almost upon the shores of holy Annwn itself, when Waah-i-ald came for him. The god walketh upon the mighty waves and took him back to the land of the living and then he and the wolf disappeared. Kiyiya twas never seen again for Waah-i-ald did return without him."

"Fie brother, that twasnt even close to what he saith!"

"Aye, but it twas a grand story at that!" the fox laughed.

Galahad threw the other fox a scowl and tried to continue in the common language. "He led us to our pool of water, there we were protected by a huge wall of…bri…bri…"

"Briers," Aideen told him.

"There Waah-i-ald dwelt with us for many seasons and taught us how to grow the three sisters and also how to build our huts. He then left us with his gift for you, his parents, whom he said would come one day and for us to be prepared for your arrival."

"That is utter blasphemy!" the priest yelled from across the ship. "There is no god named Wahh…Wahield or whatever you are calling that unnatural creature which the rabbit is carrying. When we reach our homeland, I will see that she is turned over to the Church for her sins!"

Nick leapt to his feet and grabbed up a spear, shaking it at the larger hart. "You place one hoof on her priest and I will gut you!" the fox snarled as he showed his fangs. "You will not touch my wife or my son!"

"The Church will judge you too fox!" the priest called out. "The Righteous will have their vengeful justice upon your soul, you … you foxes are all godless red-furred creatures!"

"Did you just call us all godless red-furred creatures?" Aideen barked out in surprise. She quickly grabbed Galahad's arm as the tod tried to stand and grab his spear too. No one stopped Sir Bors, as the massive bull stood and walked up to the priest.

"Thou shall also pay…" the frantic hart began to yell at the bull. He never finished his words as a huge hoof punched him in his snout and sent the black-clad priest sprawling onto the deck.

"Did you kill him?" Sir Cai yelled as he slowly rose from where he was sitting.

"He'll live, but his jaw will hurt too much for him to speak for a while," the bull answered. "At least we can now have some peace from his ranting."

"I think ye broke his jaw," one of the seals added as a group of the sailors looked down at the inert body.

"Maybe we should toss him overboard?" Sir Lionel chuckled as he spoke to his brother. "You know he is going to report you to his Church and they will want to have their vengeance. I wonder what the crime is for hitting a priest? Hey, do you think they will burn you at the stake?"

"Let them try!" Bors said in a challenging tone. "They will first have to get whichever of Lot's whelps who took over the throne to approve and you know we bulls don't tolerate these priests very well. Lot used to tell us a story that their Church overseas was concerned about what some of the priests were teaching down in Caer Ludein and so they sent one of their bishops over to find out. He was supposed to get every one of those black-robed fiends on the same page. What was that guy's name?"

"The blessed Saint Garmon," Sir Cai answered. "It seems that the bishops did not approve of some of the teachings and rituals which the local churches had begun to adopt."

"That's the name! So he came over here and began bossing everyone around, including a very young King Lot. He claimed he had been a Legionnaire general or something, and so when some of the clans crossed the wall and raided into the northern kingdoms he demanded control of the warriors. The idiot didn't know what he was doing and marched everyone around in a big circle until they were worn out. By the time that they caught up with the raiders, they had fled back over the wall again."

"Verily, the blessed saint gathered the army upon the field of battle and prayed to the gods above to smite the heathens!" Sir Tristan began to quote from an old tale. "He led them forth into a peaceful vale betwixt two mighty mountains, and commandeth the stout warriors to mightily shout when he gave them a sign. Thrice they cried out the blessed words of Alleluia and at the sound of their holy words, the heathen fled and thus the land twas saved."

"Well you landlubbers and your Church, seem to love thy saints," the captain grunted as he stood at steering oars. "Aye, but at this speed I think we may be home within a few more days."

"The Fisher King, does he command all the whales?" Nick asked the salty looking seal.

"Nay laddie, no one commands the sea lords," the captain laughed. "They doth do as they please, much like ye foxes."

* * *

**Kiyiya means "Howling Wolf" in Yakima.**

**Garmon is Welsh for Germanus. Bishop Germanus of Auxerre was dispatched in 429 by the church to Britain to combat the perceived Pelagian heresy (a doctrine that grace can be obtained through a free will) which was supposedly rife in the British/Celtic Church. Germanus was a former high ranking Roman official and there is a legend that he led a British army against Pictish and Scotti raiders. He also supposedly prayed for God to punish the sinful King Vortigern, who was consumed by the holy fire which fell from the heavens and destroyed his castle. **


	31. War Changes a Mammal

**Chapter 31: War Changes a Mammal**

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"_**War is like a fire. One man may start it, but it will spread all over. It is not about one thing in particular."**_  
Merlin in T.H. White's_ The Once and Future King_

**Bleddyn almost dies after completing his gristly mission. King Mordred learns some about the psychology of war and that a good strategy is more than just attacking. **

* * *

**489**

The two foxes were pleased with themselves and very proud that they had been successfully able to stalk so close the ram's war camp without being seen by the sentries, even with the large banner and the wolf's bloody head. Like a pair of red-furred ghosts, they accomplished their task and melted back into the inky dark night.

They had been lucky because while they were creeping ever closer, some of Maelgwn's wolves had launched a raid against the camp. The commotion had drawn away everyone's attention from their side of the field, giving them time to leave their gristly present for Aldroen.

Knowing that the Ram King had his own wolf allies and therefore unsure if they were being tracked, the two vulpine warriors spent hours creeping through dense brush, wading into cold steams and backtracking so that they were sure that not even a wolf could sniff out their trail. Finally confident that they were safe from pursuit, they joked and laughed as they leisurely trotted through a small moonlit glade. Suddenly Bleddyn froze when he sniffed a usual scent and he reached for the shield he wore slung over his back. His cousin Eifion also froze and looked around as he too sniffed and listened.

In front of him, a tannish brown-furred creature in a black cloak stepped out from behind a tree and faced them. The canid calmly looked the two foxes over.

"You're not a wolf!" Eifion snapped in surprise at the intruder. He took a combat stance with his shield up and spear ready. "Who are you?" The stranger did not move but stood silently still.

Bleddyn felt, more than heard or smelled, that something was behind him and whatever it was had caused the hairs on the nape of his neck to rise. It was that eerie feeling that you get when you feel someone was watching you, but you don't know from where. He whirled around while he brought his shield up, just in time to hear something hard thump into the linden wood. Eifion wasn't as lucky when two heavy lead darts hit him between his shoulders and he staggered with a yip.

The fox didn't have time to even glance towards his cousin as Bleddyn quickly launched himself at their assailant, another black-robed and tan furred canid. His spear missed the assassin and he brought his shield around to block the swing of a knife.

The sound of something whistling past his ear made him flinch and he briefly saw a gray round object hit his assailant between his eyes and with a bone-jarring crack, the creature was sent sprawling backward. Even as his attacker fell, the fox swung back around to face the other black-clad creature, only to find several tall deer-like warriors standing near that canid's now dead body. Once again taking a battle stance, Bleddyn snarled at the four strangers as he asked, "Who are you and why were we attacked?"

"They were not after you and your poor companion," one of the tall animals replied in a heavily accented voice. He stood taller than the fox and was slender, but still muscular, with tan flanks and a creamy white-furred chest. There were white rings around his eyes and more white along his snout. His horns were ridged and long with a slight twist, unlike any deer the fox had seen before. The strangers wore undyed wool cloaks over dark brown tunics and they too lacked any armor. "You were attacked by jackals, assassins with the Cult of Anubis."

"What are you…?" Bleddyn began to ask, but he hesitated when he glanced down and saw his cousin's dead body. The other fox was foaming at the muzzle, almost as if he suffered from the plague.

"They were planning to ambush me and my fellow scouts when you two stumbled upon them by mistake," the stranger continued. "We are impala scouts assigned to Sir Sagramor's troop of stallions and we were sent by the Pope to hunt down these godless jackals."

Bleddyn sat his shield down as he knelt next to Eifion's body. "What happened to my cousin?" he sadly asked as he reached out a paw and closed the dead fox's eyes. He reached for one of the strange-looking darts.

"Don't touch those, they used poisoned lead darts and there was no way to save him."

"What kind of warrior would fight that way?"

"They are not warriors, but they are assassins and can kill several ways. All their weapons have been dipped in snake venom and even the smallest scratch can kill."

The fox nodded as he said a short prayer over the body. "I will take him back to our chieftain," he sighed.

"Are you one of Arthur's scouts?"

"No, I am a member of the House of Llwynog, our king is good Maelgwn of the House of Blaidd"

"Were you with those foxes that Sir Sagramor and his soldiers saved from the sea wolves?"

Bleddyn just nodded as he stood up and then looked over at the dead jackal. "What did you kill him with?" he asked. "It went straight through his forehead."

"A lead ball from my slingshot, he never knew what hit him," one of the other impalas answered.

"You're a good shot."

"Actually I was aiming at the back of your head and missed," the scout chuckled. "I always miss what I'm aiming at."

"Tambo! That is not funny!" one of the other scouts groaned and then he spoke with his companion in a strange language that was full of huffing and clicking sounds.

"Sorry," the other scout named Tambo said as he went over and began to carefully remove the darts. "I meant no disrespect to either you or your cousin, I just get excited after a battle and sometimes I talk too much."

"Don't worry, I know plenty of foxes with the same problem," Bleddyn replied as he began to lift his cousin's inert body. Tambo reached over and helped him. Surprisingly the taller antelope then slung the fallen fox over his shoulder.

"I am truly sorry we did not arrive in time to save your cousin," Tambo said as he walked next to Bleddyn. "At least he died as a warrior, with his spear in his hoof…I mean paw, and will go to the home of his ancestors in glory."

"We foxes go the Great Field of the Kitsune, the Nine-Tail Fox god."

"It is good that they did not capture you."

"Why is that?"

"The Children of Anubis still eat of the flesh."

Bleddyn's ears flattened as he remembered licking the sweet-tasting irony blood from the goat that he had killed days earlier. The goat's blood had splatted across his muzzle and had an almost intoxicating taste. He then jumped in surprise when his companion spoke again.

"So your god has nine tails?"

"Yes, he does why?"

"Well, then how does he wag them? One tail is no problem, maybe two…but nine? How do you wag nine tails?"

The fox looked back at Tambo's smaller tail and chuckled, "At least he has a tail."

"I have a tail!" the impala protested as he gave it a swish.

"Well, it is longer than a rabbit's, but not much longer!"

"So says the fox with the reddish bush stuck in his arse!" Tambo laughed.

"Both of you shut up!" one of the other scouts snapped at them. "We're still in enemy territory!"

Tambo grinned and shrugged at the fox.

_War changes a mammal,_ Bleddyn realized as he looked over at the impala carrying the dead fox. There was the body of his cousin Eifion and yet they were just joking as if nothing had happened. _Have I grown so used to losing my kin that I feel no grief anymore?_

"There will be time to properly mourn your cousin when the war is over," Tambo whispered softly and Bleddyn looked up at the grim face which the scout was now showing. "For now, just be happy that you have lived through another battle. I'm a veteran of too many wars myself and so trust me when I tell you that I know what I am saying to you is the truth."

Bleddyn just nodded as he quietly walked alongside.

* * *

**489**

_"War changes a mammal," _Gawain remembered those words, which Merlin spoke to him and Arthur after their first battle. The knight looked over at his king and knew that Mordred had changed. The swaggering verbose and opinionated bear he once knew as a youth, the jealous noble who was always trying to belittle "that bastard Arthur", now seemed to be gone. Also gone was the carefully disguised uncertainty that Mordred had tried to hide from others and the Bear King had arisen. He was a king who now sloshed through the mud just like a commoner as he spoke words of encouragement to his warriors or listened while they told him about their homes. Most of the army around him was not recruited from professional soldiers, but levies. They were just farmers or merchants who came with their feudal lord and most did not have armor or even a good weapon. The majority had stout spears and shields, along with a long knife. However, there were too many armed with wood axes or even scythes and sickles. Most did not have any armor, chain mail was expensive and usually worn only the knights and their warriors. There were a few bears that had old Legionnaire iron caps and some even had odd scraps of old armor, but most wore just their linen tunics and wool capes. The army's core fighters were the king's own household guard and the knights with their personal retainers.

The boars had withdrawn before them as they advanced further towards the Rabbit King's warren and Gawain could see the tall wooden towers in the distance, the walls still held. Around them was a scene of devastation as the enemy took what they could and then burned the remainder. King Cyflym already his subjects harvest what they could and then burned what his rabbits and hares could not store inside the warren, leaving very little to feed the invaders. This also meant that there was not much to feed the Bear King's army too.

"So what do you think we should do now?" Mordred asked as he now stood in a nearby field and watched the boars beginning to muster as they faced advancing bears and their allies. "We are outnumbered again and our flanks will be exposed if we form a shield wall and meet them head-on."

"You're learning. Ideally, we would try to draw their attention and hope that the defenders in the fortress would launch a sortie into the enemy's rear ranks, but the rabbits and hares are too small to do that."

"When we first set out, I thought we could just overwhelm them with our size since we bears are much larger mammals. It was going to be a glorious battle which would have all the bards praising me for my valor in their songs."

"So you just thought that you could fight that one great battle which would stand out in the memories of all generations?" the knight laughed. "A Mons Graupius scale battle?"

"The Legionnaires may have won that great battle, but afterward they could not subdue the clans. In the end, they gave up their conquered territories in the far north and retreated back south where they built the wall."

"Remember what Merlin used to tell us about how the Legions held power in our island so long?"

"They made it advantageous for our tribes to be part of their empire, both economically and socially."

"So how many standards are before us on the field?"

"A dozen or so, why?"

"Unlike the Seven Houses, they have no one battle chief and so we face a loose confederation of several lesser leaders, all here for the same reason."

"The spoils of war, wealth, and slaves."

"Right and so far they have been stuck here trying to breach that warren's walls. That is something that is costing them the lives of their warriors without earning them either glory or riches."

"So how do we exploit that?"

"Do we know where Arthur really is right now?"

"He is supposed to be moving northward towards King Maelgwn's army, why?"

"Do you think that they know that?"

"So what you are saying is that they don't know where he is and we can exploit that how?"

"They fear and hate Arthur because he has defeated them too many times in the past."

"Yes, I know that!"

"So why don't we let them think that Arthur is on his way here to join us?" the knight laughed.

"How should we do that?"

"Withdraw back towards the woods down by the river and let them think we are waiting for someone. With their water supply threatened, sooner or later they will ask us what we are doing."

"Let them think we are awaiting Arthur!" the king chuckled. "If they think that they will be surrounded, maybe they will leave?"

The boars watched in confusion while the bears and their allies slowly withdrew towards the nearby shady woods and the banks of the river.

"So we've got the shade and the best spot to draw water, now let's see if we can really tick them off some more!" Mordred cried out as he rushed to the river bank and yanked up both his chain mail and the helm of his tunic. Gawain looked at him in confusion before he realized the king was urinating into the river and they were upstream from the boars. "You think they would enjoy a little royal piss in their water?"

"Hold the ranks lads, just a few at a time," the knight ordered the other warriors who were watching as he too began to pee into the slow-moving river. "Let's sweeten their drinking water for them!"

He was quickly surrounded by laughing warriors and their retainers who joined him by adding their contribution to the river. From across the field were sounds of angry shouting and squealing when the boars in their battle line saw what was happening.

"Think they will attack?" Mordred called over to Gawain as the other bear returned to his place in front of the battle line.

"We've got the better position and they know that it would be a bloody mess if they do attack. A chieftain can't afford to lose too many of his followers without profit, he'll lose face and it will become too hard to find anyone else who will join him in any future raids."

"So we wait and they will come to talk…I hope?"

So they waited as the sun beat down upon the field that day while the boars stood around sweating in their ever loosening battle line. Finally, a young swine left their ranks holding a willow branch, and behind him were six boars dressed in their full armor, but their swords were sheathed as they followed.

"Well, it looks like they want to talk after all?" Mordred commented he pulled his helmet over his head. "Who should we take to meet them?"

"Just you and me," Gawain replied as he snatched up his own helmet. "Oh, and we will let Togodumnus carry your standard. That bear is worth at least three boars if not all of them."

"We will be outnumbered if they try something."

"It's only two apiece."

"I've never been as good with the sword as you and Arthur."

"Then you can take the short dumpy one of the right, I'll take the old one in the center, and Togodumnus can have the rest!"

"Only if I can get their armor, weapons, and all those pretty shiny silver and gold armbands," Togdumnus laughed as he picked up the standard. He towered over both Mordred and Gawain by a good two feet. "I'll still give you a tenth since you are now king."

"That is so kind of you," Mordred scoffed as he grinned up at the larger bear while they waited for Gawain to sling his shield over his shoulders. "Are we ready to go find out what they want?"

They crossed the field and met the boar chieftains between the two armies. "We have come to find out who we are about to kill!" one of the chieftains called out. "Are you Arthur?"

"Arthur? Do I look like Arthur?" Mordred called back.

"No, I heard that Arthur was much larger, a true giant!" the chieftain laughed. "I am Heretoga of the Aesti"

"Well Heretoga of the Aesti, you are far from home," Gawain answered. "This is his Royal Highness Mordred of the House of Arth, the Bear King."

"The bears have no king," another chieftain scoffed. This boar was short and fat. "Arthur leads them now."

"You are wrong, for the king stands before you now piglet!" Togodumnus growled. "Show him some courtesy or I will shove those pitiful tusks of yours up your arse."

"My companion apologizes," the older boar quickly interjected. "We were not aware that the bears had chosen a king."

"Then you are here to keep us from capturing the warren?" Heretoga asked as he stepped closer and looked Mordred over. Of the six boars, Heretoga was the only one who looked like he was a true warrior and had been in the midst of a shield wall before. "We outnumber you."

"For now," Mordred finally replied, he didn't continue while he stared at the older boar.

The chieftains looked confused at first, but then the older boar muttered. "You are waiting for Arthur! He is on his way here!"

"Just march eastward back to the sea!" Mordred called out. "If you do so, I will command Arthur not to kill you."

"Why don't we just kill you now?" the fat boar snarled.

"Twice I've beat your armies," the king answered. "This third time will be your last battle. Soon you will be stuck between my army, the warren, and Arthur. I will take your head off myself for a prize and your skull will adorn my standard's pole, maybe I will have it bronzed?"

The short fat chieftain squealed in anger as he began to draw his sword.

"Draw that and you will die," Gawain told him.

"Stearc, stay your arm!" Heretoga called out as he stepped even closer and looked the bear over. The warrior before him didn't look like anyone special, he wore a simple plain brown cloak called a birrus, which was made from undyed wool, and his iron helmet was unadorned. The bear also wore no armbands of gold or silver, such as he wore, and just had a simple ancient-looking old copper torc around his neck. The mail shirt he wore looked like it was carefully cared for and showed where it had been repaired. "Who are you to make such a challenge?"

"He is Sir Gwalchmei ap Gwyar, the Knight of the Green Woods!" Mordred replied for the other bear.

"You are Gawain, the Right Arm of Arthur!" Heretoga said in surprise as he stepped back slightly. "Where Gawain goes, Arthur is surely not far behind."

"Your time is running out," Gawain softly stated in a threatening tone, as he put his paw upon his sword hilt. "Leave!"

* * *

**The battle of Mons Graupius was fought during the late First Century somewhere in northeast Scotland and was a divisive victory for the Romans. This didn't lead to the conquest and control of all of Briton under Roman rule and the Legions were withdrawn back into Northern England. **

**Gawain or Gwalchmei ap Gwyar in the Arthurian legend was the nephew of King Arthur and the son of King Lot and Arthur's half-sister Morgause, his brothers were Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred. Since I am not strictly following the Arthurian legend, I have made him Arthur and Mordred's cousin. His title of Knight of the Green Woods plays upon the magical story called **_**Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.**_


	32. The Once & Future Merlin

**Chapter 32: The Once & Future Merlin**

* * *

"**_I know whom thou seekest, for thou seekest Merlin; therefore seek no further, for I am he."_**

Merlin speaking to Arthur in _Le Morte d'Arthur_ by Thomas Malory

**Agent Minos meets a young goat who will one day become both the Professor and Merlin. In the past, Merlin confronts Madam Mim and Gawain speaks with a rabbit farmer, who has turned warrior, named de Hopps. **

* * *

**Present Day**

The cat in the black suit leaned back in the oversized chair and gave out an aggravated sigh while he watched as the last of the students were being hustled out of the building by armed officers of the National Security Department or the NSD, as the called it for short. His ears flicked at the sound of arguing going on across the cafeteria and he briefly looked over at the large muscular water buffalo bull in the blue police uniform. Agent Topal Minos of the ZBI had never seen Police Chief Bogo look so…well, so exasperated.

Standing next to the bull was a pudgy ram in a dark blue three-piece suit. Samuel Batterly of the NSD was not one to disagree with and the Police Chief knew that. Mino shifted in his seat and he tried to listen to their conversation. "National security…time travel…missing…" the ram was softly telling the police chief.

Suddenly Bogo's voice rose into a bellow. "What do you mean by that? Trust a fox! Nick Wilde may be a pain in my ass sometimes, but he's one of the best damn officers in the force!"

"He's got you fooled too!" Batterly yelled back. "He's hiding something!"

"We ran an extensive background check on Wilde before he was accepted into the Police Academy. Except for not paying his taxes, nothing of any importance was found."

"He wasn't exactly clean, was he? A street hustler and petty thief…"

"He was a former con-artist yes, but not a thief!"

"You're a fool, he hustled you and Hopps! The city only let him put on that damn uniform after it became public that he helped the bunny solve the missing mammal's case."

"He and Hopps solved the whole damn thing and put Bellwether and her associates behind bars. They exposed a massive ring of conspirators who had wormed their way into government, big business, and even the Church. A ring of anti-predator subversives that even your agents did know about."

"The New Caesar Movement is an old myth, just like those Children of Anubis! Conspiracy theories pushed by nut jobs online and in the press. They don't exist and never have…at least that is what we are telling the public."

Minos tried not to let them see he was listening. He had heard of many anti-predator groups and organizations, both legal and illegal, but even he did not think an ancient fringe group like the New Caesar Movement could still exist. However, nothing surprised him after the full vastness of Bellwether 's scheme was exposed.

When he had first arrived, with Nicolaus and Maria, the place was a scene of utter chaos and confusion. When the researcher's and security team first saw Nicolaus, they thought he was Nick Wilde and descended upon the poor guy in mass.

"The time portal works!" an intern was saying over and over again in a tone of disbelief. "Time travel must exist."

The cat was shoved aside as an army of white lab coat clad mammals ushered Nicolaus towards the laboratories, leaving him and Maria to try to keep up. "MARRRIAAA!" the tod's panicked voice yelled down the hallway, causing her to run faster after him.

"We've got a problem!" a wolf in a dark blue jacket with a badge on its right pocket, yelled to the ZBI Agent. "If anything happened, we were instructed to contact the NSD and I did. Now they are on their way here and I am to lockdown the facility until they arrive."

Minos nodded, he was not surprised with what the head of the security team had just told him. Time travel, if it really existed, was a matter of national security. I made sense that the NSD was now involved, but he looked back at where the vixen had just disappeared and worried. He had promised to take Nicolaus to meet with Nick, but now Wilde was missing. Poor Nicolaus quickly found himself being a "scientific oddity", something for the scientists to probe, prod, and prick.

"Minos!" a voice called to him and he shifted in the chair so he could see the doorway and saw the head of security standing there. "The eggheads are meeting down the hallway, want to go listen?"

The cat followed the larger wolf into the lecture hall and they sat in the back. Several rams and ewes in lab coats were also in the room, along with the scientists that he had met earlier. "NSD brought them in," the wolf whispered.

"Subject C's DNA is an exact match…Wilde and Hopps disappeared…the watch…" a scientist at the podium continued to drone on.

"You know he has his civil rights?" a middle-aged beaver interjected, he was one of the university's professors of Medical Ethics. "We haven't obtained his or his wife's agreement for these tests."

"We'll let the NSD worry about that!" a ram smugly answered. "He's just a fox."

"What does that mean?" the beaver challenged the other scientist. "He still has his rights and we can't keep him here unless he agrees…right?"

"Sure, tell that to the Director down the hallway."

"Focus everyone, so did Subject A and Subject B really time travel?" the leading scientist called out.

"The GPS tracker we chipped them both with has malfunctioned," a small squirrel spoke up. His tag said that he was Doctor James Nutz.

"Wait, when did either Nick or Judy agree to that?" the beaver asked. "I'm not comfortable with what is going on here! We seem to be walking over every one of our patient's rights."

"I was instructed to do so by the NSD," Doctor Nutz added. "Precisely for the reason of what has happened. We were supposed to be able to track them if they tried to leave, but the chips are not working."

"How could they, if the two of them time traveled?" an arrogant sounding young voice spoke up. Minos looked over to see a bored-looking young goat kit sitting near the back of the room with his hoofs lazily propped up on the table.

"Look kit…I mean, Doctor Whitehorn, we haven't determined if they have done that," Doctor Nutz snapped back.

"Come on, there is enough evidence that both Subject A and Subject B went back into the nineteen twenties," the young goat continued. "Every part of their story panned out, so why are we still pussy footing around this?"

"We are exhuming the body of Judy Warren, so we can see if her DNA matches that of Subject B," one of the ewes spoke up. "Furthermore, we have Subject C downstairs and so far our tests have confirmed that he matches the DNA from that of Subject A precisely."

"Are you trying to say that fox is Nick Wilde?"

"Subject A and Subject C are both exact matches, not even a littermate could be that…"

"Then Nicolaus Endacak has to be Nick Wilde from an alternative future, like you are going to find out that Judy Warren was Judy Hopps," Doctor Whitehorn interjected. "They are both creations of a time paradox."

"Not that shit again!" Doctor Nutz groaned.

"Who is the young goat?" Minos whispered to the head of security.

"Doctor Jeremy Whitehorn , the kit already has one doctorate and is working on two more."

"He looks like he's only fifteen!"

"He's only fourteen, can you believe that? The guy is a genius and used to be Stephen Hawksbill's protégé before that brilliant guy died a few years back."

"He's a bit cocky."

"He's a teenager, what do you expect?"

* * *

**489**

"You need to stop this Mim!" the old goat in the black feathered cape snapped at the elderly fat badger as she waved her paws in the air and screamed for her goddess to come and destroy her opponent. "There is no goddess named Morrígu, she never existed!"

"Of course she does, I summoned her in my cavern and she came to me as a male fox in a puff of smoke and then disappeared after she promised me that I will defeat you!"

"She came as a what?"

"A male fox with funny looking feet."

"Did you see his ears?"

"Enough of this Merlin!" the witch cried out as she threw a bag of something at the goat's face, which the wizard blocked with a flick of his cloak. A clump of powder fell upon the ground, forcing him to step back.

**"**You're trying to poison me with wolfsbane powder? Really Mim, you're getting your sorcery mixed up with alchemy." In retaliation, he tossed a capsule of something at her and it broke across her snout.

"What did you do?" the badger cried out.

"I gave you a rare virus called "malagolintomontorosis". First, you break out into spots, followed by hot and cold flashes, then violent sneezing. It will pass in time, but for now let's just say you're going to feel rather sick for a few days."

"Morrígu! Strike down my enemy with your lightning!" the witch called out as she held up her paws towards the clouds. "Strike him down!" She frowned when nothing happened before she suddenly began to sneeze over and over again.

"Look Mim, I didn't want to fight you! All I want you to do is quit pretending that you are a witch and using fear to extort others, you were once a very talented herbalist."

"Stay back or I will…" she tried to say before she shivered and sneezed again and again.

"You'll do what? Change yourself into a purple dragon or something? Give it up Mim."

"Morrrrriggguuu!" the badger pleaded as she held her arms to the sky. "Save me!"

"Did you really expect Morrígu to appear?" Merlin asked and just as he said that, a crow cawed.

"The Badb Catha! Morrígu has come as promised with my allies!"

"Your what?" Merlin asked in a confused tone and then he grunted as a pair of darts hit his chest.

"Die wizard!" the badger sneezed out triumphantly, but the goat didn't fall over dead. "How?"

Merlin pulled back his cloak to reveal that he wore a Kevlar vest and the assassin's blades were stuck in the dense material. At the sight of the jackal in a black robe, who was pulling out two more darts, the goat reached down and grasped something hanging off a belt around his waist. There was the loud retort as he fired the pistol in his hoof again and again, the bullets striking the Child of Anubis and tossing the now dead jackal backward. "I guess it was a good thing I brought the Wooferly PPK pistol after all?"

"Kill him!" Mim frantically coughed out.

Her cry was only answered sound of steel upon steel and a scream as another assassin staggered into view, he was clutching his throat where the handsome chestnut furred stallion's blade had sliced it as the knight called out his war cry. The stallion whirled around to face another jackal, but that killer was now pinned to the ground by a big black stallion's long lance. Within moments, the battle was over as the knight and his soldiers surrounded the witch and the wizard.

"Merlin!" Sir Sagramor yelled as he pointed his bloody blade at the goat. "You and Mim are both accused of witchcraft and shall stand trial before the Church."

"Witchcraft!" Merlin scoffed. "There is no witchcraft here, just a bit of sleight of hand and toys."

"You killed that jackal with your magic wand!"

"It is a tool, a weapon which launches a hunk of metal from it using nothing more than a powder made roughly from sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. As far as I know, alchemy has not been outlawed by the Holy Church yet?"

"So it was not magic?" Mim groaned as she shivered on the ground. "You have no magic?"

"No more than you do Mim," the old goat softly chuckled as he leaned over her. "Magic does not really exist. Here, take these aspirins for your fever."

The stallion looked over at the goat and frowned as he wiped the blood of his sword, using the dead jackal's cloak, there was a thunk when he shoved it back into it's scabbard. "We will let the Church decide what is alchemy and what is witchcraft," he snapped back.

"Milord, our mission tis far from done," the large black-maned war horse called out as he knelt by the body Merlin had slain and looked at the two holes with interest. "There are only three dead, their coven had thirteen. We killed four of these foul beasts in the city, two were killed by the wolves and one fell from the bell tower at the cathedral, with these three we still have three more out there somewhere."

"King Lot killed one earlier and it cost him his life," Merlin added.

"So we still have two more to find and bring to justice," Sir Sagramor replied. "The scouts are tracking them."

"King Aldroen hired the one who Lot killed to start the war between the Seven Houses," Merlin pondered. "Maybe the last two were hired to kill Arthur?"

"Then we must find Arthur before they do!" the knight proclaimed. "We must hurry!"

Mim watched with wide eyes, as the soldiers quickly formed ranks behind the knight and marched off with Merlin following behind. They had left her all alone and then she realized that she wasn't quite alone, for nearby lay the bodies of three dead jackals. With a shrug and a sneeze, she went over to the bodies and began to search them for anything valuable. At first she only found a few vials of poison and other implements of their deviously murderous trade. With a curse, she threw a clay amulet of their devilish god aside and then was rewarded with the sound of clinking metal. After several rounds of hardy sneezing, she joyously laughed as she clasped a sack of coins to her chest. It was the money that the false god had given her to hire these failed assassins and at first, she very briefly thought that since this was blood money, it might be cursed. Then with a another shrug, she decided that they had failed to do their task and she was due a refund. After several more rounds of sneezing, she happily took the coins with her as she left.

"For too long everyone has been teasing me by calling me the Mad Madam Mim!" She cackled. "With this small fortune, I'll buy a house in Caer Camlann with servants and they will call me Lady Mim from now on!" She almost dropped the sack when she gave out another hardy sneeze.

* * *

The boars had left the unconquered warren behind as they hastily withdrew westward towards the realm of the Ram King, much to Mordred's disappointment. Both the king and Sir Gawain had hoped that the invaders would have taken up their offer to go back east towards their coastal settlements. Instead, Gawain led the Bear King's army's vanguard against the retreating boars.

Now freed from their walled confines, the hares and rabbits emerged and acted as scouts for the army. "They were expecting King Aldroen to come east with his warriors and his siege equipment, but he never came," a stout rabbit named de Hopps told the bear. "Our ballistas and long spears wreaked havoc on their ranks when they tried to storm the walls."

"They are good warriors when properly led, but they do not know how to take a fortified town," Gawain agreed as he stood on the crest of the hill and watched the retreating enemy. The sun was now beginning to set in the western sky and there were rain clouds starting to form in the distance. If it hadn't been for the fact that there was a war going on, this place seemed tranquility peaceful. "I still don't understand why they just didn't leave and if this was a raid, why they left so many of the outlying undefended villages still intact and the villagers alive?"

"Our scouts could hear them talking in their camps at night and they were discussing how to divide up the land amongst their leaders, I think they intended to settle here."

"There are reports that is what they did in the south. They killed all the nobles and the priests, but let most of the commoners live."

"So the villagers and farmers kept their same lives, just with new lords?" de Hopps asked as he gave a shrug. "Most of us commoners don't really care who rules the land, at least until the taxes are due, and we only turn to you nobles to protect us from raiders or bandits. Too many times you lords and knights seem to take out your disputes with each other by raiding our villages and farms."

"Ever since the Legions left, there are only few who try to solve such squabbles by talking or seeking peace in some king's court. A small argument can become just another excuse to raid another lord's land to take his wealth," the tall knight agreed.

"Oh the kings sometimes punish them, but it always seems to be after it happens. Fines are just blood money levied against the transgressors, but who do you think really ends up paying them? We commoners do with more taxes so our noble lords can pay their fine," the small rabbit in the undyed tunic sighed as he watched the sun setting. Finally he almost whispered, "Might always makes right."

The bear looked down at the rabbit buck in surprise, it was clear that this farmer turned warrior was surprisingly very opinionated in a bitter way. The buck looked up at the larger knight and gave him a small smile before he continued, "I didn't mean to be disrespectful, but I have buried too many of my kin over the past year. First came An Sionnach and his raiders from over the wall and now the boars. Most of what I once owned has been burned and many that I loved have been buried."

"A hard life."

"Aye, but it is the life that too many of us know these dark days. We commoners miss the Legions with their law and order."

"I saw you earlier with a young doe and her newborn babies, is she your daughter?"

"She is the one light left in my life and my hope for the future. But, her children are fatherless and we first thought he was murdered by a fox…"

"The children's father was Prince Gareth, the king's son?"

"Yes, but King Cyflym turns his back on them because their mother is a commoner."

"I know a few bastards," Gawain sadly said as he adjusted the shield upon his back. "At least your grandchildren's mother survives."

"Arthur," de Hopps muttered. "He should be the Bear King if only his father had sired him upon a noble-born she-bear instead of a commoner. A bastard can't be a king."

"Yes, Arthur can't be a king."

"Yet you and many others follow him?"

"He is my best friend and we were both orphans raised in the house of Sir Ector. Arthur's parents were both dead and so were mine."

"Did you inherit your father's lands?"

"Uther seized them before he had my father beheaded, so all I own is what I wear and his sword. That is why the bards call me the Knight of the Green Woods."

"And yet you befriended the son of the bear who killed your father and took your lands?"

"Arthur had nothing to do with Uther and my father. He was just another penniless cub living in the same household, sleeping in the old rickety tower."

"Why did Sir Ector take you both into his home?"

"I was his nephew. As for Arthur, Merlin told Sir Ector that if he didn't, then he would turn him into a toad," the knight laughed as he answered the question.

"Could Merlin really do that?"

"There is much about Merlin that I still don't understand and I've known him for a long time."

* * *

**Endacak can roughly be translated into the word "wanderer" in Albanian. Nicolaus did not remember his own last name, so the villager called him this instead. **

**Stephen Hawksbill is the Zootopian version of the brilliant Professor Stephen Hawking. **

**Malagolintomontorosis is not real but comes from the movie Sword in the Stone and it is the virus that Merlin magically turned himself into to make Mad Madam Mim sick. **

**The Badb Catha or "battle crow" is the bird like form which the goddess Morrígu can take. **

**Since this story is based somewhat in reality, magic does not exist and so the fanciful battle between Mad Madam Mim and Merlin must remain only within the creative talents of that Classic Disney movie, ****_The Sword in the Stone. _**


	33. Who Wants to Live Forever?

**Chapter 33**: **Who Wants to Live Forever?**

* * *

**_"Death leaves a heartache  
no one can heal;  
Love leaves a memory no  
one can steal."_**

From an Irish headstone

**Nick and Judy's son shows some more of his extraordinary powers and in his past, tells a strange old coyote of something which happened when he first learned to time jump.**

* * *

**Not So Distant Future**

Finnick nodded at the coyote standing behind the hotel's reception desk as he entered into the grand lobby of the Palms Hotel and Casino. All around him were the sounds of laughter from the many patrons and guests in the lobby. The place was also noisy with the electronic tunes and ringing bells of the slot machines, a peppy song was being played from one of the nearby bars and he glanced at the cute young vixen at the grand piano. Around him was the exotic grand Saharan plush opulence of which the hotel was renowned for, all carrying the palm tree crescent and motif. The Palms was the finest hotel and the only legal casino in the city, it was also owned by a tribe of coyotes and foxes who held historical ownership to most of the land in the nearby district.

A gazelle dressed in a dark blue jacket and red tie looked up from the concierge desk and smiled as he greeted the small fox, "Ah, good afternoon sir, do you want me to make you a dinner reservation for tonight?"

"Naw, I think I might eat in tonight," the elderly fennec fox answered. "But thanks anyway, Clarence."

As he walked away, he could hear the well-dressed gazelle mumbling something about foxes in bowling shirts.

There was a coyote in a black suit lounging next to a similarly dressed rhino who standing guard before a private doorway. "He's back," the coyote simply stated as he watched the small fox insert his security key into the doorway's lock. "He is also in one of those moods again."

"Great…just great!" Finn muttered more to himself then to the guards. After inserting his key card into another secured lock, he entered his code into a keypad and took the private elevator to the top floor. There he was greeted by the melancholic sounds of an old Eighties tune as it echoed down the hallway. "Great…just great! I should have never let him see the movie Highlander."

In a chair by one of the large windows, the suite's owner sat and his long reddish-orange ears shot up when he heard Finn enter the room. "You're thinking about her again," Finn called out as he walked towards the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "I was afraid that would happen after yesterday. Look, Ricky, you two had a good life together and she had a choice, but she stayed with you."

"I know, it's just that I'm tired of outliving everyone I love," the fox rabbit replied as he stood up and scratched his left ear, he appeared to be in his early thirties. Then he quoted the song he was listening to, "Who wants to live forever?"

"So you were really only sixteen yesterday? You were still so young and a bit of a dumbass, so wide-eyed with youthful hopes and dreams. You know Sport, I've always wondered just how old you are right now?"

"Well, I was born in 489…"

"No, I mean really?"

"You know that age and time mean nothing to me anymore?" a child's voice answered and Finn sighed as he looked to see that his companion now appeared to be a young kit in oversized clothes.

"Would you stop that? Every time I turn around, you shift your age!"

"Aw, gee Uncle Finnie!" the chipper voice was now that of a young teenager. "You know I can make myself whatever age I want. I can be like Peter Pan in Neverland and never grow up! It has come in useful several times when I visit the past. Earlier, I just dropped a rock on the head of a mean old ram to save a young ram's life."

"And why would you care about that ram?"

"He is going to be Arthur's successor," an older voice answered and Finn sighed again as Ricky stood there as an adult again.

"Is that why are you looking so tired?"

"It just seems like things are spinning more and more out of historical sequence as if time has become broken…"

"And you are wondering if you are causing it?" Finn finished the fox rabbit's sentence. "You know there is someone you can ask?"

"The Professor…"

"You know I'm not talking about the Professor, you idiot!" Finn snapped back at Ricky. "I mean HER!"

"I can't go back to that time and place!" the fox rabbit objected. Finn smelled the other mammal's fear.

* * *

**489**

The fox rabbit, who the villagers called Waah-i-ald, finally emerged from the hut where he had been sleeping. Between the trauma of being stabbed, the lingering effects of the anesthesia, exhaustion caused by his time jumping, and the fact he really was just a teenager, he had slept well past midday before he awoke. He looked around to find out that all of his companions were gone and he gave a whiney sounding yawn.

"We were all wondering when you were going to awaken and join us?" a voice called out from behind him. He turned to see an unfamiliar elderly she coyote sitting on the ground, she was slowly pounding on pawful of soaked hemp with a round rock. The coyote was trying to smash_,_ what they called the scutching of the stalk, making it pliable enough to be able to comb the plant fibers free. Those fibers would later be spun into a yarn-like material that could be weaved into clothing or mats. "I saved you a few corn cakes from this morning's meal."

"Thank you," he said as he reached for one of the flat pancake looking cakes and nibbled on it as he looked around.

"Nockotia and all the others are up in the fields, for it seems we have locust in the corn. A blessing, for they really are good to eat."

"How did you know I was looking for her?"

"I know that look a young fox…ah…well, I mean…I know that look of a tod searching for his mate."

"Fox is alright, I seem to be mostly fox and less of a rabbit. Nockotia and I are just friends and not mates." His ears slightly drooped when he saw the disbelieving look she gave him.

"Speaking of rabbits, did you know that a long time ago hares once lived along the river? They did not stay after you brought us here to this place. It seems we made them nervous, you do know we used to eat their kind?"

"That was a long time ago and I have always wondered why we stopped? Did some god order us not to do so?"

"No, we just found other things to eat. Fish, birds, and insects don't plead for their lives and look at you with such sad eyes."

"That makes sense."

"So says the fox with a rabbit's ears and feet," the old coyote chuckled. "Tell me are you staying?"

"I don't really know? You see the thing about me, is that I can come and go when I want. I could leave and return before you'd even know I did so."

"That land of the gods which Nockotia spoke of, was that really the future?"

With a sigh, he nodded. "I really shouldn't tell you anything about it, I have to be careful and not do anything that might change the future."

The old coyote smiled and shook her head. "Then you lied, you really are a god," she held her paw up to silence him when he began to protest. "You have the power to change time itself and that makes you a god or at least godlike."

"I am not a god!"

"In your travels through time, have you ever met a god?"

Waah-i-ald's ears drooped behind his back. "I came into my powers, if that is what you want to call them, when I entered puberty. I was brasher back then, playing around with time as if it were a game. Then I got angry with what someone dear said to me said about upsetting the gods and I wanted to prove to him that the gods did not exist. I went back into the past and found out many of the gods were just half-forgotten ancient kings or warriors, just mortals long dead. Others were just a way for the ignorant to try to explain natural causes, such as thunder."

The old coyote looked at him and gave a thin smile. "But you found something else, didn't you?"

"I went somewhere where I knew I shouldn't have gone, to an event which was..is..considered holy."

"And what you found out scared you?"

The fox rabbit sighed as he looked up at the clouds in the sky. "I went to spy on an event which changed history, not a great war or discovery, but a mere child who went to the hall of a great king…ah, a chieftain. She was bringing a message of peace and love."

"Go on…"

"The child was a prey animal called a lamb and she went to the den of a great meat-eating predator called a lion…"

"The prey coming to the predator," the coyote mused. "Continue, was she a goddess?"

He looked nervously around and almost whispered his answer, "I've never told anyone about this before and you must promise not to tell anyone else."

"I promise."

"Time froze on me, everything stopped and I knew I was outside of time and space, but still inside the den. Then she…the lamb, turned towards me and told me that I did not belong there! I quickly jumped away in time and I was scared because I knew in my heart that she knew who I was. I know that is impossible…" He was startled when a locust landed on his shoulder and looked down at it before he bushed it off. Turning back, he frowned when he realized the old she coyote had left. "Where did she go?"

"You're awake!" a voice called out and Nockotia happily ran into his arms. He sighed at the feel of her embrace. "We have plenty of locusts to roast! Can you show everyone how to make tacos tonight?"

"I guess so, but first we'll have to figure out how to make some kind of salsa?"

She thanked him with a kiss and all thoughts about the old coyote were briefly forgotten by the teenage tod buck as he embraced the happy vixen. He nuzzled her neck fur and inhaled her sweet feminine scent, just then he wished he could live forever in her arms.

* * *

**Clarence is a character from the ****_Zootopia_****: Crime Files.**

**The song is ****_"Who Wants to Live Forever"_**** was written by Brian May and sung by Queen. **

"Who dares to love forever  
Oh, when love must die?"

**Roasted locust, I once met an Australian who said that they called them "sky prawns." However, he also admitted that he never ate one either, I bet they taste like chicken!**


	34. Misty Rain

**Chapter 34: Misty Rain **

* * *

_"_**_Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger."_**

Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea

**The rams continue their march northward toward the wall and a ram lord protects a pair of foxes from the sea wolves. Arthur learns a lesson from one of the kingdom's meekest subjects. **

* * *

**489**

Flames poured out of the monastery and then with a loud crack, the roof of the burning church caved in sending a flurry of sparks into the overcast sky above. Aldroen angrily stared at the devastation around him and then at the thick black smoke which rose towards the heavens above and he knew that everyone for miles around would know of the holy site's demise.

The stout stone and wooden walls were built to protect the warrior monks inside from any raiders who might have crossed from the other side of the wall, but it quickly fell to his Legion's hastily constructed war machines. Even now the large onagers, which had been used to breach the walls, were being disassembled and repacked for their continued march northward. The torsion-driven siege engines had been efficient as they battered down the wooden gates with their large stones. Now the timbers that had been used to build the weapons would be pushed, pulled and carried down the rocky trail by the local villagers that he had enslaved for that purpose.

Constantine glanced over at his uncle and worried. There had really been no real reason why they had destroyed the monastery, except that Aldroen had felt that the red deer inside had disrespected him by refusing to open their gates to his passing army. To the self-proclaimed Caesar, that was a lapse in hospitality that warranted their deaths as punishment. The sounds of cracking whips and the thumps of clubs drew his attention to where the poor villagers had been herded together so they could pick up the heavy siege equipment. A crack of a whip snapped again and again as he watched while a large ram in a centurion's uniform angrily beat the fallen body of a teenage wolf pup about his age. The poor villager did not even have the strength to yip or whine at the abuse he was receiving.

"Stop!" a voice commanded and any hope of someone helping the poor wolfling was dashed when he realized it was Vitus. "He's too far gone now to be of any use!" the large ram said as he stood over the twitching body. The pup lying below the ram's foot hoofs finally gave out a small groan and Constantine was not surprised while he watched the ram lean over and savagely grasp the injured canine's head. Yanking the poor wolf's head even further up, the ram gave a vicious twist as he snapped the pup's neck. Then he dropped the gray-furred head and it fell lifelessly into the mud, the pup's face was now contorted with pain and his pink tongue hung out of his muzzle. The sounds of a she-wolf's sobbing drew his attention and Constantine knew that it was probably the poor mammal's mother. Vitus paid her no attention as he laughed with the centurion holding the bloody whip and from where he stood, he could hear the murderous ram callously saying something about skinning the wolfling for a fur coat.

What surprised Constantine the most was that there was angry murmuring coming from the ranks of soldiers behind him and when he turned around, he realized that several of the armored rams had gripped their swords tightly while they watched the whole scene. He then discovered that his hoof too ached from clasping his own sword and that it was already partly drawn.

After slamming his sword back into its sheath, he walked towards his uncle. There was a pungent smell in the smoke now that sickened him and he realized that it was the scent of roasting flesh. The bodies of the warrior monks were being tossed into the flames to be consumed by the fire. "The Church will curse you for this Aldroen!" a weak voice called out from near the fire. He looked over and saw an elderly red deer in a brown robe kneeling in the mud, his hoofs were trying to keep his entrails from spilling onto the blood-soaked ground. "I curse you to hell for…" A sword came down and silenced the monk by removing his head from his shoulders and then his body too was thrown to the all-consuming fire.

"Gather the officers and prepare to move out!" Aldroen called over to him. "This took too long and our time is essential."

"Too long?" a grizzled veteran muttered to his standard-bearer when he heard the order. "We had no reason to destroy this place, except they insulted the king."

"Caesar!" the standard-bearer frantically whispered, as he adjusted the gilded staff which held his cohort's blood-red square cloth ensign upon it. "He is calling himself a Caesar now and will use the whip to remind anyone who forgets."

"I call him a fool! The troops are hungry and tired, most of us don't like killing holy monks for it surely bring some god's curse down upon us now."

There was a shriek of pain and the centurion watched as a cluster of sea wolves strung a fox vixen up into the air by using a rope tried to her paws, she had been beaten and abused by her fellow canids. One of them had just cut her tail off and whirled it over his head as he laughed while her body twisted and jerked in pain. Another of the raiders had pulled out a still flaming timber and used it to burn her foot paws, igniting her fur on fire, while they laughed again at her screams. Suddenly a spear flashed through the air and stuck her chest, the jerking and screaming stopped as her now dead body went limp.

With a snarl, the wolves turned to face a line of goats that stood ready with their spears and shields. "Stop that!" the veteran centurion ordered as he ran towards the goats. "Stand down! There will be no fighting in the ranks." Reluctantly, they lowered their spears as they warily watched the wolves. But, the raiders had backed away from the line of armored rams, who had joined their centurion, and now stood between the two groups. "Get back to work, we march within the hour!"

Constantine had been watching everything from afar and he glanced up at the dark clouds again before he gave out a weary sigh. They were going to not only have to march in the dark but in the rain too. Did his uncle even care that his tired soldier's tempers were already frayed? Then the misty rain began to fall.

* * *

**489**

"We only want the foxes!" the sea wolf called out from in front of the wooden hall. Sir Ennius stood blocking the doorway, the ram was dressed in his coat of mail with his sword gripped in one hoof and his other held his shield.

"This is the land of the House of Defaid and they are my subjects," the ram replied as he stared at the dozen raiders who were, in turn, watching him with amusement. "Leave this place in peace."

"Your darling Caesar," the wolf replied, dragging the word out with contempt. "Your Caesar is paying us to exterminate as many of those red-furred devils as we can from this godforsaken island. So you are standing between us and our bounty."

"They are my subjects and under my protection."

"Your protection!" the sinister-looking armored wolf snickered. He was tall for a wolf and wore a mail coat under his brown wool cape. "You're just a farmer dressed up to look like a warrior. Come on, we'll make their deaths painless and once we have their tails, we will leave you and the rest of your farmers alone. But if you try to stop us, you will die and we will burn down all you own."

"Milord, don't do this!" one of the foxes behind him pleaded. "We will go out to fight them, don't let them hurt the others."

Sir Ennius glanced back at the two fox brothers, these two had saved his life earlier when he and his motley group of followers had been sent to hunt down a group of foxes who had been raiding the army's supply lines. "A life for a life," he baahed out as he turned back towards the wolves.

"Come on farmer!" the wolf laughed. "Give us our prey and then we will leave you and your loved ones alone."

"This is my land and these are my subjects, you will have to go through me to get to them."

"So be it," the wolf snarled as he drew his own sword.

A fox in a green tunic silently watched the standoff between the wolf and the ram that was protecting two of his fellow foxes. He had returned to the land of the Ram King after fleeing from it when his wife was killed and his village burned. It took him sometime before he realized in his grief over her death, that she would have died in miserable pain from the foaming mouth plague anyways. The fox had fled his homeland after she was killed by the king's order and had fled south to join his kin living near the great shirwode. In his inconsolable grief, the other foxes of the forest had nicknamed him the wild one or Wild'e for short.

When the war began, he and his kinfolk had answered Arthur's call to arms. Also hidden nearby and watching the wolves were his kinsmammals, five stout archers with their long hunting bows. He, however, was not trained for the use of such a weapon, which took years to master, and those archers near him had been "born to the bow" as they called it. Instead, he raised one of the newly made crossbows and aimed it at a wolf's back.

The foxes were downwind, so their scent was not picked up by the dozen raiders who seemed to be toying with the armored ram. Wild'e waited for his leader to release his arrow, the dashing fox was also in a green tunic, grinned as he notched an arrow into onto his bow's string and took aim. They were outnumbered two to one, so the first shots were important and they had to kill as many of the sea wolves as fast as possible before the raiders could protect themselves with their shields.

There was a twang and he saw the arrow slam into the back of a raider's neck, the wolf grunted and fell forward dead. Before the wolves could react, more arrows fell down upon their ranks. He fired his bolt and it slammed through a wolf's chain mail, the large canine looked down in surprise at where the iron barbed head had appeared in his chest and then he too dropped dead.

Snarling, the remaining wolves turned to face their attackers. Their leader also had turned his attention away from the ram and Ennius took advantage of the wolf's confusion by trying to strike him with his sword, but the blow was awkward and the blade skidded off a mail-clad arm. The raider quickly twisted around and slammed his shield into the ram's sword arm, causing him to drop his blade. Unarmed he was now at the mercy of the killer and in desperation, the ram dropped his shield so he could grasp the wolf's sword arm and the top of his shield.

Unable to strike the ram, the raider snarled and snapped at him, trying to bite him. Ennius desperately gripped the trained warrior's arm, trying to keep the deadly blade from slashing him. Then the ram did the only thing he could do and brought his horned head down to butt the wolf's head, both the ram and wolf staggered backward away from each other. Sir Ennius saw stars before his eyes and the wolf desperately pried off his now dented helmet. Tossing it aside, the raider leaned over to pick up the sword he had dropped and as he did so the fox brothers leaped upon him and they all tumbled to the ground.

He three canids snarled as they rolled about in the mud, the foxes trying to drive their knives into the wolf while all three were snapping at each other with their teeth. The raider finally was able to toss one of the foxes off him and reached for his sword again. His eyes widened when the ram's blade drove into his throat and blood filled his muzzle. Within moments the raider's leader was dead, as were his companions.

Sir Ennius sat down in a chair just inside the doorway and stared at the dead wolves, a misty rain had begun to fall and he looked upwards at the gray sky. "Everyone come inside and we can warm up with a bowl of spiced wine before we bury these wolves."

* * *

**489**

A cold misty rain began to fall as the sun disappeared into the west and it persisted throughout the evening, making everyone cold, damp, and miserable. Arthur had retreated into the nearby oak woods in an attempt to find solace from the noise of the war camp. His thoughts had been bothering him ever since they had left the village, where they had buried those poor foxes and their ram master. Sitting against a tall majestic old tree, he had found a dry spot and stared into the growing darkness while his doubts and fears began to set in again. He knew that so far his luck had held out and he had won a string of what others praised as impressive victories over the foes of the Seven Houses, but he also feared that his luck was now beginning to run out. One mistake on the field of battle could cost him many of his warrior's lives. "I should have been a farmer!" he growled to himself.

"Then why didn't you?" a small voice called out and he peered down by his foot to see a small gray-furred mole in a brown undyed tunic. "I didn't mean to be listening to you, but you are sitting in front of the opening to my den."

"Sorry about that," the bear said as he shifted himself while he began to stand.

"No, no please stay seated. That tree affords one of the few dry patches around here and I can squeeze past you, but I was wondering with all these large animals sitting around here if there was something going on that I should know about?"

"A war between the kings and invaders from overseas, we are on our way to stop them."

"So just another one of these wars between you large ones, I'm not surprised."

"What do you mean by not being surprised?"

The mole's pink nose twitched as he squinted up at the massively larger bear. "Since the dawn of time, it seems that you large ones are always killing each other over something or another. We moles are just happy that you've stopped hunting us for a meal. Every time I smell a fox or a wildcat, I shudder at the stories of what your kind did to mine. You know…chomp…chomp…gulp!"

"So a war doesn't worry you?"

"Why should I worry, no one bothers us shrews here in the woods and therefore whoever claims to rule this land does not really matter to us. We were here when the Legions came and built that road, and we will be here when they leave."

"Ah…they actually left generations ago."

"They did? Well, who really cares?"

"You really don't care who your king is or who rules the land?"

"Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, ashes to ashes...dust to dust. For us moles life goes on, the moon rises and the moon sets, and we just get on with our lives. So if you will excuse me, I'm going to go to bed."

"Good night," Arthur called out to the mole as he slipped into a small hole by a large gnarly root.

Pulling his cloak closer, he closed his eyes and realized that he was envious of the small mole. His life was so simple and carefree, a thought briefly crossed his mind and he scoffed out loud, "I wonder if Merlyn could turn me into a mole and then I too could scurry away from all of this?"

Arthur had closed his eyes for just for a moment when he heard a sound, something slithering around him in the woods. Reaching for his sword, he suddenly panicked when he realized it was no longer in his lap. "Arthur!" a familiar voice spoke. "What is your problem bear?" He opened his eyes only to realize that it was daytime and he was in the old apple orchard just outside of Sir Ector's farmstead. Green eyes met his as she giggled and ran behind a tree. "Are you getting too fat to catch me?"

"Gwen, I'm not fat!" he scoffed back as he flexed his teenage arms. "These are muscles!" He watched her run towards another tree and realized that she had changed since they had last been together. She was no longer the chubby she cub and had filled into the body of an attractive fifteen-year-old girl. With a grin, he charged after her and soon had her pinned against another tree.

She halfheartedly tried to push him away as she giggled, "So now that you caught me, what are you going to do?"

"Maybe I will toss you in the pond?" he suggested. He was confused at the look of disappointment she gave him.

"Arthur, you are so dumb sometimes!" she sighed as she reached up and stroked his muzzle. "I meant for you to kiss me." Their first kiss was awkward but sweet.

"ARTHUR!" the voice growled in the pitch dark and he tried to peer into the inky void. There was a flash of flame and in it, he saw the golden dragon staring down at him. "The land is without a king! The king is without a land!" the golden beast growled out. "The Pendragon must arise!" He realized that his great blade Caliburn was now in his paw and he snarled as he pointed it at the dragon's throat.

"ARTHUR WAKE UP!" a panicked voice called out and he opened his eyes in surprise to see the blade was at the throat of King Maelgwn. "Put that sword down!"

"I'm sorry Maelgwn," he apologized as he lowered his sword and took the Wolf King's paw. "I dozed off and dreamt of the dragon."

"That's what happens when you sleep in an old Druid's Grove," the wolf grunted as he helped the bear stand.

Arthur blinked when he realized it was now dawn and that the sun had risen. In the morning's light, he was greeted by the sight of a vast multitude of warriors, for the two armies had finally found each other.

"Come, Arthur, it is time to end this war," Maelgwn called out as he walked towards the camp. Then the wolf paused and his tail wagged, as he turned and grinned back at the bear. "But first we break the morning's fast, I've brought plenty of smoked fish, oatcakes, and good heather mead!"

* * *

**An onager is a small catapult used by the Roman army and could launch a stone mounted on the cup-shaped tip of a beam or in a sling for a great distance. The whole machine tended to rock violently back when fired and that is why it was named after the kick of the onager, which is a species of wild ass. **

**Sir Ennius returns from Chapter 16: Mercy, when the two fox brothers saved his life from Sir Gaheris. **


	35. Running out of Time

**Chapter 35: Running out of Time**

* * *

**_"We have had a good time while we were young, but it is in the nature of Time to fly." _**

Merlin to Arthur in T.H. White's _The Once and Future King. _

**As they draw nearer to their destination, Judy appears to go into labor. Waah-i-ald realizes that he has to leave before he is born because he cannot be in two places at the same time. **

* * *

**489 **

The clicking, squeaking, and clucking noises of the spinner dolphins had caught the attention of Bouma and the northern bottlenose whale shot through the water to find out what was so funny. She surfaced in the deeper ocean waters off the coast of the Green Isle and stared in disbelief at what she saw before her. Diving deep, she rolled onto her back as she watched the large gray whale swim overhead while he pulled something behind him and she realized that the great sea lord was towing a small land dweller's ship.

Aboard that ship, Judy held her belly as she strained to see over the ship's side, so she could watch the dolphins leap and dance through the waves as they rejoiced at what they saw. A pod of black and white orcas came to the surface and silently trailed after the boat, but unlike their playful gray companions, they had a warlike seriousness about their movements.

"Aye, we be almost home ye landlubbers!" the captain of the ship called out from the steering oars, he pointed up the shore from the dense green forests and rocky beaches that they were passing, towards a large barren field of gray weathered rocks that ran to the sea. "Thar be the Giant's Causeway!"

"Tis said that the great giant Fionn mac Cumhaill built a path so he could cross the sea to do battle with his enemy on the other shore. Afterward, the sea god destroyed the causeway and separated the two islands once again," Sir Tristian explained.

"Did Fionn win?" Nick asked as he stared at the large hexagonal shaped blocks of basalt stone and huge columns.

"Nay, the other giant twas much larger and so he outfoxed him instead!" the other fox laughed.

"Captain!" one of the sailors called out in a concerned tone. "Tis ships littered all along yon coast!"

The pod of killer whales shot past the ship and formed a battle line as they watched the activity along the beach.

A sailor called out to them in the Seafarer's Tongue and after a few minutes translated their answer, "Twas a great battle between the boars and the army of the Fisher King, they slew many of the boars and drove the remainder to take shelter ashore north of the wall."

"Things must be bad that the Fisher King has interceded in a war upon the land," Sir Cai muttered in surprise. "As long as the boars and the other raiders left his subjects along the coast and the otters on the rivers alone, he has always kept to himself."

"Surely they hath not attacked fair Ynys Afallach or Lyonesse?" Tristain asked. "For they art sacred and holy places."

The priest in his black robe silently watched the coastline and then he glared at the pregnant rabbit and the fox, who was standing by her side. _Those two's time of judgment hath come,_ he thought to himself and grimaced when he tried to smile at the prospect of their arrest. Gingerly he held a hoof up to his sore jaw and poked his tongue against the roughness of the broken teeth that were there. Scowling he looked at the two bulls that stood next to the elderly bear. _Your time has come too, so I swear by all that is holy._

"He's glaring at you again," Sir Lionel whispered to his brother. "You know that he will try to have you arrested when we land?"

"There will be bloodshed," Bors grunted.

"Yes, there will and we might be outlawed."

"So be it, but I will separate that serpent tongue lying head of his from his shoulders before he and his likes lay a hoof upon Judy."

"Then maybe they will burn us together?" Lionel sighed as he fondled his sword's hilt.

Everyone turned towards Judy when the rabbit gave a sharp groan as she held her belly.

* * *

**489**

The Lady of the Lake held the strange card in her paw as she stood on the ramparts of Ynys Afallach or Avalon as the dwellers of the village had begun to calling their island. The Tarot card that the otter held up towards the sunlight, was called the Lovers and showed the images of a rabbit doe facing a rabbit buck. What was wrong with this card was that there was a strange red stain that made an almost fox-like image and it made her ponder what that might foretell. "Does this mean that another fox is in love with a rabbit?" she muttered softly before slipping the card back into her deck. The thought of such a strange romance bothered her because it was the tragic deaths of valiant Sir Bedivere and the fair Lady Arawen which had been used by Aldroen when he attempted to drive a wedge between the great houses. "The Church deems such love as being a mortal sin and yet I wonder?"

Without waiting for her companion to answer, she drew another card and held it up. A frown came to her brow, it was the reversed Tower, a sign that she was resisting the change and upheaval that must come. "The old ways are dying," She sighed as she too placed this card back into the deck.

"We can't stop it either," the weasel standing nearby called out. "We have fought change too long on this sacred island, we battled the Legions when they came and now we fight to preserve what they left us after they went away. The old gods were driven into the caves and deep woods by the Legionnaire's gods, now these gods are driven into the dark by the Church and their gods and saints."

"So it seems my dear Henry and yet I am not ready to let all we love to go off into the darkness with those gods, but I fear that this is the beginning of the end of all."

"Mayhaps it tis milady, but it may also be a new beginning instead?"

The otter watched some children playing in the orchard along the shoreline, their laughter filled the air.

"Still I am not ready." Without realizing it, her paw drew another card. She blinked in confusion as she held it up, but the sounds of a pigeon's wings disturbed her concentration and she shoved it back into the deck. A wind was blowing from the west and she felt a sense of urgency as she looked that direction.

"Milady?" Henry called out.

"We must leave and go west! Something is about to happen, I feel it Henry!"

"I will tell the oarsmen to prepare to sail in the morrow."

"Nay! We leave now!" the Lady of the Lake called out as she ran down the battlement stairs and towards the great hall. "We must hurry!"

* * *

**489**

Waah-i-ald's head had begun to hurt and he felt a familiar feeling as he sat by the calm blue-green pool of water, the sounds of the nearby villagers talking and laughing was soothing to his long ears. His paw moved along the vixen's furry back as she leaned against him and he realized that he had been fooling himself all along and that he could not stay.

"What's wrong?" she whispered, her right paw made calming, lazy swirls in his chest fur, but he still did not relax.

"I've got to leave, I was afraid that this was going to happen."

"Why?" she asked as she stiffened up and looked into his amethyst eyes.

"I cannot be in the same time as I am already in and I think…no feel, my mother is soon going to go into labor. If I stay, it could tear me apart for I cannot be two places at the same time."

"And yet you were here with me all along when she was pregnant with you?"

"I don't know how this works, it's just I know I can't…" she silenced him with a kiss and he wrapped his arms around her as he fell back into the soft moss. Reluctantly he pushed her away and scooted back from her as he looked into her now tear-filled green eyes. "I'm sorry, I did love you…" he started to say as he willed himself to time jump.

She launched herself into his arms and desperately clung to him.

**Sixteen Years into the Future from the Present Day**

With a grunt, Waah-i-ald slammed down into a pile of hay and was momentarily surprised that she was sprawled on top of him. The old oak beams of the barn overhead were a welcoming familiar sight, at least this time he went to where he wanted to and hoped it was the right time in history. The feeling of the vixen stirring against him drew his attention again and he embraced her, finding her muzzle with his own. They were both slightly panting as he gripped her tighter, not even realizing that he was not suffering from the usual nausea which he should have been experiencing. His only thoughts were about the young sexy vixen in his arms and she gave a small moan as his paws began to move down her back towards her tail.

Both the fox rabbit and the vixen were startled when a voice yelled out from nearby.

"Damn Ricky, you almost scared the shit out of me!" a teenage red fox tod cursed as he looked up towards them from where he was working on an old beat-up car. "Whoa! Who's the hot babe?"

A younger vixen momentarily looked at them both with wide eyes, before she ran from the barn screaming, "Mommy! Mommy! Ricky is back and he's got a naked girl with him!"

"A naked girl!" another tod called out as he ran into the barn and almost tipped over his own foot paws when he saw Nockotia in the hayloft above him. "Oh wow!"

Nockotia had never been the least bit self-conscious before about being naked and she did have a loincloth on, but the leering look the strange male fox was giving her made her uncomfortable and she used her paws to cover her bare chest.

"Hey you two perverts, quit staring at my girlfriend like that!" Ricky barked out in anger as pulled pawfuls of hay and threw them on her in an attempt to cover her exposed chest.

"You're getting me all dirty!" Nockotia snarled in protest and she lowered her paws to wipe and shake off the hay. Finally, he pushed her slightly behind himself and then used his own tail to cover her instead. He couldn't help but give a small yip when she gave it a playful tug, but it did the job.

"Geeze dude, they must not wear clothes where she comes from, and is that a loincloth you are barely wearing?" the other fox said as he unbuttoned his checkered cotton shirt and passed it up to Ricky. "Have her cover herself up with this before mom gets here!"

"You've been gone a long time, so where and when did you go?" the fox at the door asked.

"I went back to watch the villagers and stayed."

"I can see why!"

"Waah-i-ald, just who are these foxes?" Nockotia asked in Old Fox. She clung to him as she looked over at the shirtless tod in a pair of old blue jeans and then at the other fox in a pair of denim overalls

"I'm Jason," the now shirtless tod answered in the old tongue. "And that is my brother Odysseus, I guess you could say we're Ricky's cousins."

"Why do they call you Ricky and not Waah-i-ald?" she asked, she still clung to him as if she feared he'd time jump again and leave her behind.

"Because the name my parents gave me is Richard Stuart Wilde."

"She's over here mommy!" the young vixen's voice urgently called out from outside the barn. "She and Ricky were kissing in the hayloft!"

"He was kissing her?" another young female voice giggled. "Is she pretty?"

"That little tattletale would be Cassia," Jason laughed. "The other vixen is Cassandra, they are our sisters."

"Our mom has a thing for the old local legends," Odysseus added. "I know it's kind of embarrassing to be named after ancient heroes, but she also taught us the Old Fox language. So Ricky, now that we have introduced ourselves to your girlfriend, are you going to be a gentlemammal and tell us her name?"

"Her name is Nockotia and I met her the year I was born."

"From anyone else that would sound really weird," Jason chuckled.

"For a fifteen thousand-year-old vixen, she sure is pretty," Odysseus added with a grin. "Does she have any sisters?"

"She's in here mommy!" the vixen's voice was now just outside of the barn.

"Oh snap!" Ricky groaned as he laid back into the hay, his long ears drooped behind his back. "How am I going to explain this?"

* * *

**The Giant's Causeway on the shores of Ireland was created by a volcanic fissure, which left over 40,000 interlocking basalt stone columns which seem to form an ancient trail into the sea. Of course, everyone really knows it was really built by the legendary Irish hero Finn MacCool, also known as Fionn mac Cumhaill, so he could defeat his rival Scottish giant Benandonner.**

**Lyonesse is the sunken kingdom of Arthurian legend. Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem ****_Idylls of the King_****, writes that it is where Arthur and Mordred would have their last battle.**


	36. Living Legends

**Chapter 36: Living Legends **

* * *

"**_For there be those who hate him in their hearts,  
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet,  
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man:  
And there be those who deem him more than man,  
And dream he dropt from heaven."_**

_Idylls of the King, The Coming of Arthur_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

**A red fox warrior named Bleddyn walks around inside of the war camp of the armies of the Wolf King and Arthur. Aboard the ship, the priest is not happy with where the captain has decided to anchor.**

* * *

**489**

There was laughter from around the campfires as old comrades gathered together, many were veterans of the previous battles which Arthur had led them in and now they were reunited in yet another campaign. The sad realization of what seemed to be a series of never-ending warfare made Bleddyn's ears flatten as he looked around at all the warriors. Earlier that afternoon he had arrived into the war camp with Tambo and the other three impala scouts, all four were soldiers in the Church's ever-growing Holy Army. Tambo had boasted how the Church promised to replace the old Legionnaires' Empire with a new Holy Empire, led by the Pope and his bishops instead of a Caesar. The fox wondered if this might be the only road to peace, since the Legions had left the island, it seemed that one war followed another as raiders came over the wall, invaders landed from the mainland, and even pirates attacked from the neighboring Green Isle. To him and his kin, peace was only a fleeting promise before the violence of battle came yet again.

Being a fox, he also feared to give the Church any more power over the land than they already claimed. For now, their ambitions were checked by the petty kings and their personal interests, but a Holy Empire ruled over by black-robed dour-faced priests? The fox stopped and shuddered at such a thought when he realized that his species would probably be persecuted and discriminated against. The Church had officially claimed that the foxes were responsible for original sin.

He stopped and listened as a wild-looking wolf dressed in a rough wool tunic excitedly told of a great sea battle, his accent revealed him as being from the Green Isle, and the story he was telling to those gathered around the fire was almost unbelievable. He weaved a tale about a great gray sea monster that charged into and sank many of the boar's warships. Bleddyn had never seen the ocean since his clan was from a remote mountainous glen in the northernmost part of the Wolf King's domain. No, a great body of churning water was unimaginable to the fox who had only seen the still waters of the local loch and the tumbling waters of the streams which fed it.

Homesick, for the remote peacefulness of his glen, which seemed to be calling to him as he remembered the majestic trees towering in the mountains around his home, along with the heather and the wild mountain thyme blooming in the spring. His had been a simple life until the Wolf King's summons came and he marched southward with his fellow kinsmammal, including poor Eifion whose body now rested under the green turf as his spirit ran carefree in the meadow and drank ale in the Great Hall of the fox god Kitsune.

Because of the remoteness of his glen, there was no news of what was happening at home and he prayed to the Nine-Tailed Kitsune that his parents and littermates were safe. What worried him greatly was that the cats had said that the sea wolves had crossed over a worn and poorly defended section of the old wall and that his home was not too far south from that area. His tail wrapped near his foot paws as he dreaded the thought that his family's tails might now be hanging from some wolf lord's banner, proof for the bounty offered on foxes by the Ram King.

His stomach growled as he continued his walk past several gathering of warriors clustered around their fires and then he spied a barrel of apples. "May I have one of these?" he asked a goat in a worn tunic who was standing nearby. This goat didn't blink an eye in surprise at the sight of a fox, for he was a follower of Arthur, and instead plucked a fruit from the barrel and tossed it to him. "Thank you."

The red apple was juicy and delicious as he tried to slowly enjoy its taste and not just gobble it down like foxes and wolves were renowned for doing. "Bite...tear…chomp…swallow," was the old saying about how canids ate. They called it "wolfing your food down" and sadly it was a true statement, for such poor eating habits were natural to them.

He munched on the apple as he watched while a badger made new spears, the stout spear hafts were made from long fairly straight Ash tree branches which had been stripped of their bark and on one end, they had been tapered so an iron spearhead could be carefully jammed over the shaft. Then a ballpeen hammer was used to tap a nail into the holes and before their ends were flattened to lock the spearhead into place. After it was completed, the spear was set aside and yet another was being made.

Their shields were another important weapon and in a capable warrior's paw, it was used as both a defensive and offensive tool of war. They were made from multiple wooden planks dovetailed together and bonded with hardy fish glue. In some cases, the wooden oval or circle was then covered with a layer of linen cloth soaked in even more glue to reinforce the shield and make it stronger, but that was rare. Willow, ash, or poplar woods were commonly used, but the favorite material was linden wood since it had a tendency not to split upon impact. A hole in the center of the round shield was covered with an iron bowl-shaped boss, which not only protected the holder's paw, but also the long wooden strip that was tacked on behind it that give a grip on which to hold the shield and added additional strength.

Once the shield had dried, it was passed over to several young otters who slapped on a coat of paint to show which unit the warrior was with. Crosses, sun wheels, circles, or lightning bolts were among the many designs that were later painted on them for decoration. Unlike a sword or an ax, shields were never given names since they were likely to be destroyed in battle. Several blows from an ax would quickly crack and shatter it. A warrior in the front row of a shield wall would usually have to replace his after each battle if he survived.

The fox's shield was smaller and lighter than one carried by a spear wolf or a ram. Unlike the larger canids, foxes usually did not wear chain mail either into battle and instead counted on their nimbleness and speed. Attack, stab, slash, duck, and then run, was the only way that they fought. Bleddyn was trained to never try to fight a large warrior by himself, but to fight in teams of two or three foxes. Bears and bulls were their most dangerous of their foes, for their large swords or axes could easily shatter a shield and their chain mail was thick. To battle one of these warriors the foxes had to gang up on them and surrounding him, as they jabbed their spears at any unprotected spot in hopes of bringing their enemy down. A thrust to the unprotected neck or up into the groin was usually a killing or incapacitating blow. Rams were less dangerous, but they always fought as a unit and were hard to outflank. Goats, however, were armed and fought just like foxes, although the smaller vulpine warriors were faster.

A fox's most deadly foe was his cousin the wolf because they were almost as fast as he was but larger and stronger. It was also near impossible to lose a well-trained tracker wolf once he got your scent. There was an old saying that "a fox stalks his foes, but a wolf hunts his." Wolves also traveled within their packs and you rarely fought a lone wolf. Although, there were those who did prowl their way through history, including the legendary Baldor, who stories were told that he was once a thief, a mercenary and an even a pirate before he won the crown of the King of the North.

As he wandered through the busy camp, he found himself staring at a large bear standing next to a stately looking wolf and several other knights. The bear was dressed in a simple dark blue tunic and, unlike the wolf, he had no crown upon his head. The fox could tell this tall handsome warrior was important and then he suddenly realized who it was! Before him stood Arthur, the living legend himself, of whom tales had been told around the fire! He was the Knight of Justice, the Slayer of Giants, The Bringer of Hope, and much more…he was the Pendragon! The bear seemed preoccupied with the discussion he was having with the Wolf King, but then he stopped and glanced back at the fox. Arthur did not say anything, but his eyes locked onto Bleddyn's, then the bear just smiled and nodded at him before he once again turned his attention to what the others were saying.

* * *

**489**

The gray stone walls of the old Legionnaire battlements loomed above the distant shoreline before them as the stout trading ship plowed its way through the seas. The great whale had released them to their own seamammalship within sight of the town and the seal sailors had quickly run their sail up, now only the wind drove them forward.

Standing on the bow, the black-robed priest looked at the nearing port with anticipation. Finally, he would bring all aboard this vessel to face the Church's justice, especially that witch of a rabbit and her ungodly fox consort. His smug look turned from one of triumph to disbelief as the ship sailed right past the docks and turned northward again along the coast. "I demand that you land me at Calunium!" he commanded the ship's captain. "I must report this heathen witch to the bishop!"

"Tis my ship and we art sailing to the village of Alauna," the crusty one-eyed seal answered, "Tis there we shalt harbor and if ye continue tay insist on leaving my ship here, I'm sure that my lads would be happy to let ye take a swim tay the yon shore."

"You dare!" the priest snarled out and then he winced in pain as he tenderly grabbed his jaw when he felt the discomfort. The bull's blow hadn't broken his jaw, but had dislocated it and shattered many of his teeth. Desperately he turned towards Sir Cai and cried out, "Milord Knight, we must land at Calunium, I must report to the bishop!"

"My leadership of this expedition ended when we learned that the King of the North had died," the bear replied as he watched the port pass by. "Like you, I am merely a passenger and under the command of the ship's captain. We shall go where he commands, for that is the Law of the Sea."

"Well said," Sir Bors muttered as he began to strip off his coat of chain mail which he had pulled on earlier when he thought that they were landing in the Calunium.

"The captain will anchor us at the fishing village of Alauna near the old watchtower," a seal sailor softly told Judy. "There are foxes there that should be able to help you two out."

Judy was leaning back and resting against Nick now. Her earlier contractions proved to be false labor, much to the relief of everyone aboard the ship.

"Is there a church there?" Nick asked. "Will be safe from his kind?" The fox nodded towards the priest who was now standing at the stern frantically waving towards the passing ships.

"It is at least a two-day hike back towards Calunium from there, over a few mountains," the seal answered. "It is not much of a village, with only an old watchtower near an even older ruined temple. It's dedicated to some old Legionary god long forgotten."

"I've heard the legend of fair Alauna, it twas where that some seafarers were savedth from the druids by a god who ferried them to Insula Manvia in a magic boat," Sir Tristian interjected as he knelt next to the rabbit. "The Legionnaires built a temple there, but since that god twas not recognized by the Church, the statue in the temple twas thrown down by the faithful followers of holy Saint Garmon."

Several hours later there was the sound of laughter coming from an old temple atop of a tall cliff's outcropping, but the three young foxes stopped playing inside the ruins as they watched the approaching ship. Immediately the oldest dashed down the hillside towards the village below to give warning. The other two scrambled to find a better vantage point to watch and one of the reddish-orange furred kits climbed on top of the old statue's fallen fox-like head. Nearby, lying in the rubble of the reddish collapsed roof tiles, were the statue's two now damaged long rabbit-like ears which had fallen off in disrepair.

* * *

**Year 45**

"Ruuunnnn!" the odd-looking fox with the long ears and feet yelled at his companions on the beach. "They are coming and they are pissed!" The strange-looking fox ran fast and his stride had a little hopping motion to it as he frantically sprinted down the hillside.

"What did you do?" an older red fox asked as he struggled to lay out a large yellow rubber raft and then quickly inserted the canister into the valve. "You were supposed to hustle them into thinking you were one of their gods and buy us enough time to get this afloat."

"I panicked and told them I was a god alright, but I forgot which one we picked and accidentally told them I was Aion! They have no idea who Aion is."

"What about the grenade, I didn't hear an explosion? Why didn't you throw the grenade to scare them?"

"It was a dud! Where did you get that thing?"

"I stole it from an ammunition dump in 1945, so it should have worked. Let me guess, you didn't pull the pin like I told you?"

"Damn it!" The fox with the large ears cursed before he ducked when a spear whizzed by his head. A line of tall red deer in white robes was now cautiously approaching them along the beach with their spears lowered. "We're running out of time!"

"Was that a joke?" the fox asked as he rummaged around in the green cloth sack that the raft came out of, it was almost inflated. "Here use this!"

The creature who called himself Aion caught the tube and looked down at it before he grinned. Holding it in his paw he pointed at the chief druid and dramatically yelled, "I am Aion the god of time, flee mortals or I will bring down the wrath of the gods upon you!"

"No, aim it in the air!" the fox barked out, but he was too late. The flare shot out of the tube and left a trail of smoke before hit the druid smack in his chest, knocking him over and catching his robe on fire.

"Oh snap, sorry!"

The sight of the flare killing the chief druid panicked the other druids and their followers, thinking that it was magic they quickly ran screaming the other way.

With the help of the mystified sailors, who were with a large white boar and his wife, the fox pulled the raft into the waves. "Come on son, get aboard and start paddling!" the fox yelled as he climbed into the yellow rubber dingy.

Thus when the Legions finally conquered the district, they build a small temple to Aion the god of time who the legend said had saved their own.

* * *

**The simplest shields were often made in the fashion which Bleddyn observed. The Romans also made their famous** **rectangular, semi-cylindrical shield, they called a Scutum and it was made with three sheets of different wood laminated together. Again a metal boss was in the center protecting where the hand gripped the shield. The manufacturing of this type of shield required great skill by the craftsman and time. **

**In the Arthurian legends, shields were often given names. King Arthur carried Pridwen, which bore the image of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Baby. The Shield of Evalach was carried by Galahad and it had a cross painted upon it with the divine blood of holy Josephus of Arimathea. Gawain carried the Shield of Judas Maccabee. The reality is that actual shields are not magical and would be damaged or destroyed in battle, only to be discarded for a new replacement.**

**The legendary Baldor, King of the North, I envision as being a Zootopian version of Conan the Barbarian. He is an Arctic wolf who was enslaved in his northern homeland and escaped to flee south, where he became a renowned warrior, pirate, and mercenary before he returned home and united the polar bear clans. **

**Calunium was an ancient Roman fortress located at Lancaster. The captain chose to turn back and sail northward into the Solway Firth to Alauna, a village near modern Mayport. It is the site of the Senhouse Roman Museum.**

**Insula Manavia was the Roman name for the Isle of Man. **

**In my last chapter, a Guest Reviewer brought up Diarmuid. In the famous Irish tale called **_**The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne**__**,**_** an aged Fionn mac Cumhaill is seeking a new wife and the much younger daughter of Cormac mac Airt is chosen to be his bride. She, however, falls in love with one of Fionn's young warriors, the handsome Diamuid, and they flee together. In some ways it similar to the tragic story of Tristan and Iseult and the later Arthurian stories about Lancelot and Guinevere. **


	37. Of the Gods

**Chapter 37: Of the Gods **

* * *

**_Howbeit, Gawain thus dashing amidst the companies, found at last the opening he longed for, and rushing upon the Emperor forgathered with him man to man. Lucius, then in the flower and prime youth, had plenty of hardihood, plenty of strength and plenty of prowess, nor was there nought he did more desire than to encounter such a knight as would compel him to prove what he was worth in feats of arms._**

CHAPTER XI, Book X, _Histories of the Kings of Britain_, by Geoffry of Monmouth

**The death of a warrior and the death of a priest happen, while a child is born in a hut alongside the sea. **

* * *

**489**

Gawain knelt in the green grass and next to him were the remains of his shattered shield, which he had tossed aside and out of his way as he held a sword in the hoofs of the dying boar. The boar was tall for his species and powerful, with long tusks and a fiery temperament that had concealed the dangerous calculating mind of the warrior who had challenged the bear to single combat.

He had waited between his retreating comrades and the advancing army of the Bear King, waiting to challenge the greatest knight in the approaching army. Gawain had already defeated one challenger previously, an overconfident youth who blundered more than once in his attempt to kill the bear. It had cost that boar his head after only a few minutes of swordplay and the Knight of the Green Woods was barely panting from his efforts. This boar, who proclaimed himself Stearc, awaited him hours later.

Both armies had halted to watch the duel and swords banged upon shield as their champions faced one another. Gawain approached with his green shield on which was painted the image of an oak tree in one paw and his father's sword Galatine in his other. Stearc faced him with his own shield and a war ax. Unlike the previous challenger, there was no boasting from this boar while the two warriors warily circled around each other as they seemed to await the other to strike first. Then the boar did the unexpected and instead of striking out with the ax, he threw it with all his might at the bear. It tumbled swiftly through the air, before slamming into Gawain's shield and cracking it as the ax stuck itself blade first into the wood.

Gawain grunted at the impact and threw his now useless shield aside, drawing his long knife to replace his shield. Stearc had already charged forward, even before the ax hit its target, drawing his sword as he ran. With a battle squeal, he slashed downward with his blade at the bear. Metal rang upon metal as the knight parried the blow and swept his sword around with a backpawed swing. The boar's shield blocked the blade and Stearc swung up again at Gawain, but the blade this time met the sturdy long knife as the bear drove Galatine into the boar's exposed side. The sharp strong blade slammed through the warrior's mail coat and deep into his right abdomen, Gawain gave it a twist as he pulled it back out. Blood spilled down the shocked boar's side and both of the warriors knew that the sword had pierced the bowls, the stroke was fatal.

Stearc tried to stand¸ his arm dropped his shield as he brought his own blade up for another swing at the bear, but Gawain had already stepped past him, and swung his own sword around. The mighty blow caught the boar in his back and shattered his backbone. Dropping his blade, the warrior fell forward onto the ground. Gwain at first watched as the boar desperately tried to seize his sword, but it was just out of his reach. Dropping to his knees, he rolled the warrior over. "My s..sw…sword," Stearc pleaded. "I m..must d..d..die with my sw…sword."

Reaching over, Gawain picked up the blade and placed it in the desperate boar's hoofs, helping hold it in his grasp. "Here," the knight softly said to the dying warrior. "Hold it tight."

There was the sound of running and Gwain seized his own blade as he saw another warrior approaching, it was Heretoga. The other boar had thrown aside his own shield and sword as he dropped to his knees next to the dying warrior. "I'm here Stearc!" Heretoga called out as he placed the dying boar's head upon his lap. "Hold fast to your blade and I will ease your passing into the mead hall of the One-Eyed God." Stearc nodded and stiffened as Heretoga drove his knife into the base of his skull. "I will see there one day, old friend."

"He was a brave warrior," Gawain commented as he released the now dead warrior's hoof. "He fought well and with honor."

"He was my sister's husband and will be sorely missed."

"I am sorry for her loss, but he followed the warrior's way."

"You have earned his weapons and armor."

"No, he died as a warrior and should be buried with his armor and shield. I will make no claim on either, see that his son receives his sword. He should one day carry it into battle as I carry my father's."

"You are noble for a warrior," Heretoga said as he held his companion's head still in his lap. "So tell me sir knight, is Arthur also gallant with his enemies?"

"I am but a pale reflection of Arthur," Gawain sighed. "He is terrible in battle and forgiving in peace."

"Then he should be a king."

"He is a bastard and cannot sit upon the throne, for his blood is tainted with that of a commoner."

"Ah, then that is this land's loss. Only a great king, like your Arthur, might bring peace through strength. I will say a prayer for his soul to the One-eyed God after he is dead."

"Only if you outlive him!" the bear replied with a smile. "Many of your kind have thought they could defeat him only to find themselves beaten."

"It is too bad that we are at war, I would have liked to meet this Arthur on a field of peace. A good leader is rare during these troubling times."

* * *

**489**

Nick lifted Judy over the ship's side and then held her steady as she walked down the plank towards the beach. Around them, the villagers had gathered to watch the passengers disembark and they were a strange lot, most were seals who fished the waters. There were several fox families also and the strangest of all were three albino pigs, wearing black nun robes. "The holy sisters are from Arkan Sonney over on the island, they care for the sick along the coasts," one of the sailors told them before they disembarked. "They are healers from a convent founded long ago by a Legionnaire boar and his wife who were shipwrecked here. The legend says that they were saved from an evil druid by a god who slew him with fire from his paw, they built a temple to that god."

The priest had shoved his way to the shoreline and was arguing with one of the sisters. "He'll have no luck getting them to listen to him about you two," Sir Cai rumbled out as he splashed into the waves. "They are not followers of the Church."

Nick held Judy's paw as they walked onto the beach. He stopped to look at the strange wooden boat which was painted a bright yellow, it almost looked like a wooden version of an old inflatable dingy used by the coast guard.

"Verily this little one seemth to be large for one with child," one of the nuns called out as she greeted them. "Yon priest claimith that thou art a witch and carry thy fox's child. He claimith that thy child tis unclean and a sin against the gods. My sister hath explained to him that all are born sinless into the world and he was none too pleased."

Judy gripped Nick's paw hard as she gave out a grunt. "It's the contractions, Nick, I'm having contractions again!"

"Come my dear one, let's go into our hut and lay you down," another of the nuns said as she urged the rabbit to follow. "It seems that thy time hath come."

"Once Judy and Nick are safe, we must go towards the wall," Sir Bors said to his brother Lionel as he watched the nuns lead the rabbit towards a hut. "If war has come again, then our blades will be needed to keep out the wild clans from invading."

"Hold the wall," his brother nodded. "That has been our oath since birth."

Sir Cai looked landward toward the mountains. "Our place is with the army," he said to Sir Tristan. The fox was watching his sister as she walked with Galahad towards where Nick stood and then he watched the hut with worry.

"At least my brother will be there with his scouts," Tristan finally answered. "Bedivere was always the better warrior."

A villager looked up at him in surprise, the old reynard had been stroking the fire back to life so they could cook some fish and fry oak cakes for the visitors. He looked at Tristan and his ears flattened as he slowly approached the bear and the fox. "Milord, hath thy not heard the ill news yet?" he tentatively asked.

Tristan looked over at the villager and shook his head.

"We hath heard the sad news that the valiant Sir Bedivere twas executed by the House of Cwningen for raping the fair lady Arawen," the other fox continued as he bowed before the knight. "King Aldroen hath joined with King Cyflym to punish us foxes and they hath both gone to war with the House of Blaidd, because good King Maelgwn defends us. Arthur too hath been deposed of by his cousin Mordred, who hath proclaimed himself the King of the Bears."

"My brother tis dead?" the knight asked in disbelief. "Nay, thou must be mistaken, for my brother would never lay an unwanted paw upon a fair maiden."

"Mayhap this tis sailor's gossip, but we hath been warned that King Aldroen hath placed a bounty upon our tails and to hide from all who come."

"Why did you not hide from us?" Sir Cai asked.

"Thou hadst fellow foxes aboard yon ship and we doth knowst her captain."

"Then we must head towards the wall," Cai growled to Tristian. "We must do so in all hast."

"Milord," the elderly fox interjected. "Thou must also take care of the wolves too, for King Aldroen hath allied himself with not only the boars but also the sea wolves from the mainland."

There was a scream of pain and Nick jumped up as he looked towards the hut where the nuns had taken Judy. "Carrots!" he yelled as he rushed down the beach and towards the hut. Several vixens had joined the nuns inside and they barred him from entering.

"Come on Nick," Sir Bors called out as he put a large hoof on the fox. "This is female's work, so leave them to their mysterious ways of calving."

"But…" the fox began to object.

"There is always pain with birth," Sir Bors continued. "I have three wives and six children who have survived. You must trust in your gods, for there is little we can do else wise."

"I need to get her to proper medical care!" Nick yelled out in panic when he heard Judy cry out again. "She needs modern medical care."

There was another scream from the hut, Nick pushed his way free of the bulls and ran towards the doorway. He hesitated when he heard the sound of a baby's cry, but then there were screams of fear. A nun opened the door and stumbled out. She was desperately crossing herself as she looked back into the hut with wide panicked looking eyes.

"Twas a boy child," a vixen said as she too fled the building. "Twas a half-bred, but thy mate…"

Nick pushed past her and into the building, he looked around in dismay. There was blood all over the pallet. "Where's Judy, where's my wife?"

One of the nuns looked down at him and she appeared to be in shock. "The child was born, it was a hard birth and the rabbit was dying. I placed the child in her arms and that medallion in her paw…"

"What happened to my wife and child?" Nick snarled as he grabbed the larger sow's arm. "What happened?"

"A…a…a white thing appeared and took them both!" the nun cried out. "It must have been an angel!"

Galahad stood in the doorway and behind him was Aideen.

"We are all cursed!" the black robe-clad priest cried out as he pushed himself past them. "An abomination has been released upon the world and you must die for what you have done!" Nick glanced up at the tall red deer and saw that he had a fishing knife in his hoof. The wild-eyed priest swung the knife down at him and he ducked, scurried away from his reach. The priest lunged forward with the knife raised again, but he grunted in pain and the blade fell from his hoof as he gasped and clawed at the spear which had been thrust into his belly.

With a snarl, Galahad pulled the blade free as the wounded hart stumbled backward and out of the hut. The smaller fox stood there staring in horror at the bloodstained blade, his ears flat atop of his head.

"You dare strike a servant of the gods?" the enraged priest screamed as he clutched his wound with both of his hoofs. "For that, I call down a curse upon you and all your brood, until the ends of time! I curse you and that vixen! All of you I curse to hell..."

There was a swishing thump as the bull standing behind him brought his sharp silvery blade down across the back of the fanatic's neck, the horned hart's head was sliced off and it tumbled to the ground even before the remainder of the black-clad body collapsed. Blood spurted from the wound, spraying upon the vixen's feet.

"Thou hast slain a priest!" Aideen cried out as she leaped away from the still twitching body. "The Church shalt curse thee for this, we are all doomed!"

"Your Church is cruel," Galahad snapped back at her in anger in the Old Tongue. He had dropped the spear and looked at it as if it was a poisonous viper. "Your gods are cruel!"

Sir Cai looked in shock at the dead priest and then the fox. "Seize him!" he ordered to Sir Lionel, but the bull did not move. "Seize him I said!"

"He stuck the damned black-robed fiend who tried to kill Nick first," Sir Bors finally said. "The blow was struck true and in defense of an unarmed mammal, I finished him off before he could cast his evil spell against us all."

"Still he must stand…" the bear continued.

"It was in defense of another," Sir Lionel cut him off. "It was a blow to stop an attempted murder and another to bring justice. By our law, Bull Law, such blows are justified. Surely such a crazed creature would return to haunt us with its undead curses.

"As a lemure or a revenant," Sir Bors agreed. "He must be buried face down with his head between his feet so he cannot find his way from the grave!"

Cai lowered his head and looked over at Sir Tristan. The fox looked first at the bloody bed, then the nuns, and finally at the dead priest. It was evident that the slaying of the priest was not his first concern. "The priest called the child an abomination? Nay, I believe what we hath seen twas a miracle. The gods hath not cursed us as the crazed priest hath claimed," he finally replied. "Mayhaps we hath just witnessed the birth of a god, for did not Galahad sayth that his Waah-i-ald tis a benevolent protector of his tribe?"

"He hath fox-like features and a rabbit's ears?" the old renyard said as he hobbled up to them. "Aye, tis just like the statue in yon temple. He twas the god who saveth those Legionnaires so long ago."

"Then a god hath been reborn," one of the nuns proclaimed as she and her white-skinned sisters knelled outside of the hut and prayed.

"But Judy?" Nick whimpered as he looked helplessly around. "What happened to Judy?"

* * *

**The Future**

"We've finally got a lock on the drone and we are bringing it back now!" Doctor Sarah Longleggs called out. The maned wolf in the lab coat watched the signal on the monitor before her. The white drone appeared, but it had more in its robotic arms than just the pocketwatch it had been sent to seize. It had a rabbit in its grasp and blood was dripping down from between the inert doe's legs. A cry filled the air from the baby she clutched to her chest. "Get a medical team in here, stat!"

The pocket watch, the item the probe was sent to retrieve, fell from Judy's dying grip.

* * *

**Heretoga delivered a coup de grâce or the "mercy stroke". The French developed a special thin blade called a misericorde to dispatch a fatally wounded knight. It could be shoved through the visor into the brain or under the arm and into the heart to deliver a final blow.**

**The Arkan sonne in Manx folklore it is a type of fairy animal that takes the form of a white pig that brings good fortune to those who manage to catch it.**

**The elderly fox tells Sir Tristian what he had heard from the fishermammals. News traveled by word of mouth only and came slowly to some parts of the kingdoms and, in this case, included a little medieval "fake news" about the Hare king joining the Ram King.**

**A lemure or a revenant is a wandering and vengeful spirit or animated corpse who have returned from the grave. Such creatures were part of Roman, Celtic, and Norse folklore. Stories of such creatures were recorded in writings from the Middle Ages. **


	38. Tears in the Night

**Chapter 38: Tears in the Night **

* * *

"**Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and there**f**ore she had a good end."**

Sir Thomas Malory in _Le Morte d'Arthur_

**A brief chapter which expresses the flawed "humanity" of some of our heroes and the fate of Judy is revealed. **

* * *

**Not So Distant Future**

Finnick crossed the hotel lobby towards a coyote in a black suit, who was standing guard before a private doorway. "He's back again," the coyote simply stated as he watched the small fox insert his security key into the doorway's lock. "He's entertaining tonight."

"Great…just great!" Finn muttered more to himself then to the guards. After inserting his key into another secured lock, he entering his code into a keypad and took the private elevator to the top floor. There he was greeted by the sultry sounds of an old fifties crooner as it echoed down the hallway. "Well, at least he's moved from that damned movie song and on to old romance tunes by Jerry Vole."

The older fox's ears flicked at the sounds of feminine giggling coming from a nearby bedroom and Ricky opened up the door, he was dressed in a black and green striped silk robe. His tail was swishing as he went to the bar and dug around for a bottle of Champagne, today the fox rabbit looked like he was in his early twenties. Finn sighed as he peeked into the room and saw the young reddish-furred fox inside, she was clutching the rumpled sheets to cover herself, and he recognized that she was the vixen from the lounge.

"She works here!" Finn snapped in an accusatory tone as he looked over at Ricky. "You know these workplace entanglements can cause us trouble."

"We're just friends," the hybrid tod replied as he grabbed a carton of strawberries. "We have an understanding and this isn't the first time." Ricky winked at his "uncle" as he crossed the living room and kicked the bedroom door shut behind him, there was more giggling from inside of the room.

With another sigh, Finn reached for the coffee maker and found a pod of the blend he liked. After popping it into the machine, he leaned against the arm of a chair as it brewed while he tried to ignore the sounds from the next room. "Two days ago he was moping around here because he missed Nockotia," he muttered to himself. As he reached for the coffee cup, his ears fell flat and he gave yet another soft sigh. "It may have been two days for me, but hell it might have been two years for that damn time traveler?"

Taking his coffee with him as he walked towards his own bedroom, he hesitated at the doorway and stared at the bed in front of him. With a chuckle, he put down the cup and went to his closet to pull out his tuxedo. "You know, it's been a long time since I've entertained someone up here," he said with a smirk as he yanked off the bowling shirt he was wearing and began to pull on a white dress shirt. "Maybe I can find myself some company too?" He paused when the glint of the wedding ring on his left paw caught the light and he tossed the shirt aside as he slumped onto the bed. Running his paws between his ears, he sniffled as tears formed in his eyes and ran down his cheeks. "Shelia, why did you have to leave me?" he sobbed as his right paw twisted the ring on his left paw. "I wasn't supposed to outlive you!"

It had been five years since he held her paw in the hospice care room, the cancer was quickly claiming her body and there was nothing he could do about it. He confronted Ricky about her, desperately begging him to go into time and find a cure for her cancer, but he said that he could not. "Damn it, you do everything for everyone else!" he snarled at the larger fox rabbit. "I'm begging you to find some way to save her!"

The hybrid began to answer about something about the fragility of time and the butterfly effect, how one thing can lead to the next, but Finn wouldn't or didn't want to hear that. "My all the gods damn you to hell then!" he screamed at Ricky. "I know you can save her, if only you wanted to!"

"Save her!" Ricky yelled back with a snarl. "How many damned times have I saved her and you from things you didn't even know that were going to hurt you? There was a car on Madison Street years ago that should have hit and killed Aunt Sheila when she jaywalked across the road to reach you for lunch. I went back in time and flattened that car's tire so that the driver was delayed. He was delayed alright, damn it, and by doing so he died in a car accident with a truck. I sacrificed his future and the future of his children growing up with him in their lives to save Aunt Sheila! So yes, Finn! Yes, I am doomed to hell and I deserve it too!" The tod buck charged out of the room in anger.

He never asked Ricky for a favor again, for it was on that day he realized the burden of his godson's powers. Ricky had the power of a god and the fallible morals of a mortal.

Finn pulled the shirt off and laid back on the bed as the tears ran down his cheeks.

* * *

**Not So Distant Future**

Ricky stared into the darkness and he could feel the warmth of the vixen next to him as she peacefully slept. With a troubled sigh, he put his paws under his head and looked up at the room's ceiling while he remembered the many ladies in his unnaturally long life. Nockotia was his first love and she had carried that precious innocence he loved about her throughout her entire life. Over the many years of their long marriage, he joined her as she aged and slowed down. However, sometimes when she was feeling "nostalgic", he would indulge her by returning to his warm "twenty-something" body to give her some youthful companionship on those cold nights. But, although he could stop and turn back time for himself, he could not for her.

Closing his eyes, he time jumped to the place where she had been laid to rest. He sat naked in the grass next to her tombstone, as he watched the stars above and the moonlight shimmer upon the waves of the ocean below. This had always been his favorite spot, the place where they spent their honeymoon in a tent. Ricky smiled as he leaned back against the cold stone. "Do you remember the morning after our wedding, I told you that we needed to get dressed for breakfast?" he whispered to as if he expected an answer. "You just reached up and pulled me back under the sheet, yeah we missed both breakfast and lunch. In all my long years, that was still my favorite day."

His greatest regret was that they could never have children and despite everything he attempted, he was just sterile. The Professor said that was not an unusual condition in half breeds, such as male ligers and donkeys. The doctors called it Azoospermia and there was nothing science could do about it either.

While Nockotia was his first and greatest love, he had many other "companions" during the many years after she had died, but he had only one other wife. Natasha was everything Nockotia was not, she was brash and worldly. The larger arctic wolf was a coworker with Project Chronos and when they first met, they hit it right off. Their relationship was fast, furious, and intense. Her sense of humor was one of the many things which attracted him to her. "So if you are a time traveler, you must be The Doctor!" she proclaimed as she tossed him a paper bag.

"What are you talking about?" he asked in confusion. "Doctor who?"

"Exactly, Doctor Who! Just like the character in the old television shows."

He burst out laughing when he opened the bag and found an impractically long multi-colored knit scarf and a brown wide-brimmed felt fedora hat with fake fox ears attached. "You've got to be kidding me" he snorted out in laughter as he tried it on.

"You look just like the Fourth Doctor, except he was a badger."

They played at his being "The Doctor" during a few of his trips in time. "So if I'm The Doctor, then which of my companions are you?" he asked her after a night of binge watching the old shows.

"I'm Bad Wolf, of course," she growled as she licked his ear.

"Well then my Bad Wolf, to the TARTIS!" he proclaimed as he tucked his ears inside the silly brown hat. He knew exactly where and when he could find a blue police box and together they time jumped into it. Needless to say, the real thing was not as spacious inside and was definitely much larger on the outside than the inside, much to their amusement. However, it was not to the amusement of the large bear in the dark blue police coat who opened the box's door at the wrong time and he was both surprised and embarrassed at what he saw was going on inside the box. "Gods Murphy, you need a vacation!" the police officer growled when the hat wearing fox, who was kissing a white-furred she-wolf, disappeared in a blink of an eye. He pulled out the patrol logbook and stared at the date, December 25, 1963, then setting the pencil back down, he just shrugged as he closed the book again. "Nope, I didn't see a bloody thing! But after work today, I'm going to need a holiday pint or two."

Like Nockotia, she also slowed down with age, but she never lost her sense of humor.

Tears filled his eyes again as he lifted his paw and traced Nockotia's name, which was etched in the cold marble stone. "Who wants to live forever?" he sobbed out into the darkness.

* * *

**489**

The fox in the green tunic hugged his knees to his chest as he sat in the rubble of the old temple, Nick Wilde was lost. He had sworn to himself that he was never again going to cry again after that night he was bullied during scouts, but now he was just so scared.

His "Carrots" or Judy, the love of his life, was gone and he had no way of knowing if she had survived childbirth. The nuns had said that she was dying when she was taken by that weird white angelic thing. He did take comfort from what he saw around him, the stone head that looked like a fox and the two long rabbit-like ears which had fallen off. At least he knew his son survived and would one day come here. He moved his paw down to almost caress the cold marble face's cheek, pretending that he was touching the cheek of his son.

Tears began to run down his own cheeks as he looked up at the seemingly cold moonlight. "I swore to never let them see that they got to me," he whispered to the night. "But, if there are any gods out there, please take care of Judy."

* * *

**The Future**

The infant's cries in the darkroom drew the large maned she wolf's attention and she scooped him up out of his makeshift bed. Doctor Sarah Longleggs knew very little about the care of a newborn infant but patted the small half breed softly on his tiny back as she walked around the room. The attention she was showing the poor baby was enough to calm him down. "You're just lonely and scared," she whispered softly as she carried him down a hallway. "Let's go see how your mother is doing."

Gently the large fox-like wolf carried the small kit down the corridor and stopped where there was a glass observation room. Inside were several medical doctors huddled around a stasis pod and inside lay the naked gray rabbit. The doctors watched her vital signs, which still remained weak, as the nanobots began to repair her internal damage. Everyone in the room knew it was still touch and go.

Sarah gave a sad sigh as she felt the little package in her arms squirm. Earlier, during the heat of the moment, even while the medical team rushed to the assistance of the blood-soaked rabbit and her newly born child, for some reason an old movie line was stuck in her head. She remembered a character called Miracle Max saying, "_Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive."_ It turned out that Judy Hopps was indeed slightly alive.

She carried her tender bundle further down the hallway and into a small dark room, so she could look out the window at the dark university campus and beyond at the bright lights of the city called Zootopia. She always liked this time of night, the world out there seemed so peaceful and at rest. The baby squirmed and began to cry causing Sarah to sigh again, this time louder, because her nose told her why the poor tike was in tears. "Okay Aion, let's go change that diaper."

* * *

**A liger is the offspring of a male lion and female tiger and although the females can breed, the males are often infertile. There are many examples of Pantherahybrids from crossbreeding between tigers, lions, jaguars, and leopards. Mule stallions, the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are also infertile.**

**Miracle Max is from what movie? Yep, it's The Princess Bride! When you get the chance, you might want to read ****Zanrok****'s version of that classic, The Zootopia Princess Bride, and leave a review too. Like all of us writers, I'm sure that Zanrok would like to know what you think of the story. **

**Okay you Disney nuts, what happened December 25, 1963? **


	39. The Wall has Fallen

**Chapter 39: The Wall Has Fallen!**

* * *

"**_Why did Merlin send you south of the wall?"_**

Artorius Castus (Arthur) questioning a captured Pictish warrior in the Movie **_King Arthur_**

**Bad news arrives in camp and Bleddyn finds out they have a new mission. Near the wall, Nick about has a nervous breakdown with worry and finally goes ballistic on his companions.**

* * *

**489**

"The wall hath fallen!" those dreaded words spread like wildfire through the army. Messengers had been arriving and leaving all throughout the morning. Fleet hoofed roe deer who trotted down the trails towards points unknown, while others arrived and were ushered quickly into the presence of Arthur and his commanders holding a council in the ancient Druid oaken woods. The word of the calamity came not from them, but from the many other refugees fleeing the tragic battlefield with the news.

Bleddyn's ears flattened in disbelief as the foxes listened to one of his kinsmammals, who had arrived with a continent of tall priestly red deer archers. The young tod told them that he had been sent by their clan chief with news that the foxes were fleeing westward towards the sea to escape the invaders. Those too elderly or infirmed and were unable to leave their glen, were hiding in the heather-covered mountains instead with the scant hope that they would not be found.

"How many did you see?" Cadoc asked as he handed the young tod a bowl of watered-down beer.

"There were too many to count," the foxling whimpered as he drank. He was trying to act brave, but he had only seen twelve winters in his life. "I came with Fionn and Gharas, but we were ambushed by wolves. I ran…I should have stayed and fought!" tears began to run down his cheek.

"You were commanded by our chief to bring us this message and that is what you did!" Cadoc softly said as the chieftain put a paw on the lad's shoulder. "Fionn and Gharas sacrificed themselves so you could do your duty, they died heroes."

"The…the wolves killed them both," the youth cried out. "They…they cut off their tails, why would they do that?"

"Cadoc, Arthur has requested you in the grove. I think he has a mission for your scouts," A tall muscular wolf in chain mail called out as he approached the foxes and at the sight of the imposing wolf, the young tod hid behind Bleddyn. "Who's the youngling?"

"My cousin Peredur, he brought us a message from our clan chief," Bleddyn answered. "Wolves killed his companions, butchered them for their tails."

"Those bastard Sea Wolves," the knight cursed. "I'd love to gut them all myself and hang their tails from my banner! They didn't track you down?"

"They were right behind me milord," Peredur answered. "I was afraid they were going to catch me too, but I ran into a large herd of red deer. A shower of their arrows killed a few and sent the remaining surviving wolves fleeing. I followed the archers as they trotted down the trail, but finally I fell with exhaustion and could not keep up. That tall priest picked me up and slung me over my shoulder." The fox was pointing at a black-robed red deer standing in the grove with Arthur.

"That so-called priest is a king!" the knight laughed. "My dear boy, you were carried here over the shoulder of good Guethelin, the Hart King."

"He's a king?" the fox stuttered.

"Aye, you are one lucky fox!" the knight replied as he began to walk away towards the grove. The wolf stopped and looked back at the young fox. "Peredur, I have need of a new squire, for my current lad is of age to take up the spear and shield. I could use a strong fox like you as my new squire, someone who can care for my gear. He has to be reliable and dependable like you seem to be, are you interested in the job?"

"He is your lordship!" Bleddyn quickly answered for the youth. "We will bring him over to your camp before you return."

The knight nodded and began striding towards the assembled nobles.

"Who is that?" Peredur asked.

"That my lucky tod is Sir Owain, the Wolf King's cousin, and he is one of the best wolves who has ever wielded a spear," Bleddyn answered. "Do as he says and work hard, for he has offered you a rare honor. A fox has never served as a wolf knight's squire before!"

"But I want to stay near you and my other kinsmammals!"

"I have a feeling that where we are going, Cadoc will not want you to follow."

Cadoc did arrive back at their camp, along with Sir Gaheris, and both he and the rabbit looked concerned. "So where are we being sent this time?" Bleddyn asked as he picked up his shield.

"We and the other foxes are to scout the trail towards the old hillfort on Mynydd Baddon. We leave at dark, so get your gear packed lads."

* * *

**489**

Nick followed the others as they trekked their way northeasterly towards the wall. The wall had been built by the Legionaries generations upon generations ago to keep the wild northern tribes from attacking their more civilized subjects to the south. It had been first built as a simple turf wall, with guard posts and forts along its length. Ultimately this proved inadequate and a new stronger stone wall replaced the turf construction. To the north of the wall, a deep ditch was dug to make it even more difficult to breach the stone colossus. Forts were constructed every five or so miles, so the construction was elaborate with the ditch, the stone wall, a military road, and then what they called a vallum. The vallum was a simple ditch that had predated both the stone and earlier turf wall. Every mile along the wall had a tower, or what the Legionnaires called a milecastles, with signal fires and flags to warn if trouble brewed.

After the Legions marched southward and then finally across the channel towards their homelands, the locals began to let the wall fall into disrepair. Without skilled mason, those areas of the wall which needed repair, a simple wooden bailey replaced the stonework. The most western portion of the wall was under the reign of priestly King Guethelin and the House of Carw, but the majority of the wall was the responsibility of the House of Tarw. The bulls were still in disarray after the death of King Lot, they hadn't had the time to select a successor, and so each of the late king's sons took his retainers to a section of the wall. The problem was there was no king's guard to provide a mobile backup for these garrisons.

Sir Tristan and Galahad had jogged ahead to scout their trail and they returned several hours later, Nick could see they were concerned at what they saw.

"There art refugees ahead," Tristan panted out. "They art fleeing their settlements and villages, I twas told that the wall hath fallen."

"Nay, pray to the gods no!" Aideen cried out. "The wall hath stood firm since the times of the Legions." Galahad moved to comfort her, much to the annoyance of her brother.

"How!" was all Sir Bors snapped. His hoof tightly clutched the hilt of his sword.

"They sayeth that that King Lot's youngest son, Agravain, did conspire with Aldroen to lay siege upon a section of the wall together. Agravain and the sea boars twas on one side and Aldroen and his rams wert on the other side, the garrison twas slaughtered. Now the boars, sea wolves, and the wild clans doth pour forth unto the land like a plague of locust."

"Then we can't keep going eastward," Sir Cai growled. "We need to find Arthur and his army, for they are our only hope now."

Nick listened as he rested nearby, he pondered what he remembered from the stories and movies he had seen about King Arthur and his knights. Except for Robin Hood, Arthur was one of his favorite childhood stories when he grew up and _The Once and Future King_ was one of his favorite books. "Camelot," he muttered to himself. "But isn't Arthur a king there? "

He sat and watched the others and then suddenly he remembered part of a play he once saw by a comedy group about King Arthur. "Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor, who had nearly stood up to the Vicious Chicken of Bristol, and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill!" he quoted out loud some lines from the play. "The Battle of Badon Hill!"

"What are you babbling about?" Sir Cai asked as he turned to face the fox.

"Has Arthur fought a battle at a place called Badon Hill yet?"

"Nay, but the old hill fort on Mynydd Baddon tis a formidable place to make a stand," Sir Tristian answered.

"Then Arthur and his army will be at Badon Hill."

"Why do you think that he is going there?"

"Why do I think that he's going to be there?" Nick growled out in frustration as he stood up and looked around at everyone with his paws tightly clutched by his sides. There were tears welling up in his eyes again. "Because, damn it all, I'm just tired of all of this! My Judy is gone and I don't know if she is still alive. On top of that, I have a freak of a son who is a time-traveling god!"

"Nick…" Aideen tried to say in a soothing tone, as she reached out to touch his arm.

"Don't…Just don't!" he snapped at her as he angrily pulled his arm away. "I want to just go home, where I can brush my teeth and take a long hot shower. I want to sit on a damned toilet again and wiped my ass with toilet paper and I don't want to have to hike everywhere, but take a car! I WANT FREAKIN' A CUP OF COFFEE!" he finally screamed.

He stood there in the middle of the trail and panted with a crazed wide-eye look. "You asked me how do I know where Arthur is going? The truth is that I read it in a book when I was in school, a book all about King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable. Noble knights, all dressed in their perfect bright shining armor and not that…that stuff!" he was now pointing at Sir Cai's chain mail.

They looked at the fox as if he was insane and that angered him even more. Stamping his foot in frustration, he continued, "Sir Kay…Sir Bors…Sir Lionel…Sir Tristian…Sir Galahad…you're all in that book, so don't you get it? I'm…I'm from the freaking future!"

"That tis impossible…" Tristan began to protest.

"Nay, brother!" Aideen objected. "After all that we hath seen, yea still doubt him? His wife twas with child overnight, the angel cameth for his son and wife, and his son tis Waah-i-ald...nay this makes sense. We saw the image on the stone in the village of his son, carved many generations before we wert born and the villager's stories of his son hath being there before. Aye, Galahad and I saw the statue in the old temple by yon sea and it twas the image of Waah-i-ald!"

"Well, he did get the rabbit knocked up overnight and that angel was seen by the nuns," Sir Bors added. "So Nick, you say that Arthur plans to go to Badon Hill?"

Nick meekly nodded.

"Then to Mynydd Baddon we shall go!" the bull called out as he hefted his pack unto his broad shoulders. Leaning over, he placed a huge hoof on the smaller fox's shoulder. "So, do your future stories tell that I am the greatest of all these knights?"

"Sorry to disappoint you big guy, but that is Lancelot."

"What kind of name is Lancelot?" the bull laughed and he stood back up straight. "Then I will defeat him to prove I am the best!"

"I actually think he was made up by the writer," Nick sighed. "Look I've said too much already. Most of the book was like a fairytale and might have been based on some real history. I mean, the first part is called the Sword in the Stone and they call Arthur by the name of Wart too, what idiot would dare call a king by the name of Wart?"

Sir Cai almost tripped over a rock as he stared at the fox in surprise.

* * *

**Peredur, who is better known as Percival, now enters our story as a meek squire to a knight. In the movie ****_Excalibur_****, he wants to be Lancelot's squire. He was the original hero in the quest for the Holy Grail as introduced by the writer Chrétien de Troyes in his stories written in the 1500's. There are some scholars who claim that he is in older Welsh works, such as ****_The Dream of Rhonabwy_****, in which a Peredur Paladr Hir or "Percival of the Long Spear-Shaft" is mentioned.**

**Sir Owain or Yvain was one of the earliest knights associated with King Arthur and may be based on Owain mab Urien, of the Welsh Triads. Again, he can be found Chrétien de Troyes story ****_Yvain, the Knight of the Lion. _**


	40. The Road to Badon Hill

**Chapter 40: The Road to Badon Hill **

* * *

'**_My men are strong, but they have need of a true leader. They believe you can do anything. To defeat the Saxon, we need a master of war; why do you think I spared your life in the forest? That sword you carry is made of iron from this earth forged in the fires of Britain. It was love for your mother that freed the sword, not hatred of me."_**

Merlin speaking to Arthur in the movie _King Arthur_

**Where else would I start the road to the final battle, but with two lovers at a drive-in movie theater in the Canyonlands? In the distant past, Bleddyn discovers some allies on their trek towards the mountain. Nick and his companions make it to Badon Hill, only to find out someone is waiting.**

* * *

**1977**

It was a classic van, a sex symbol for its time, with tinted porthole windows and the inside walls were lined with plush dark red velour. There was a sound system which included a state of the art duel 8-track tape and cassette tape stereo player and, perhaps most importantly, a full-size bed with a colorful crocheted blanket. Under that blanket two lovers watched, with rapt attention, the movie on the big screen as Princess Leia in her white dress raised and placed a gold medallion around Han's neck as the roguish wolf winked at her. She then went and repeated the ceremony with Luke, before they turned and faced the assembled troops. The troopers all bowed before them, while a large brown furry creature growled and a small robot beeped with happiness.

"That was amazing!" Natasha happily barked out as she set aside the half-empty bag of popcorn and hugged her smaller fox-like lover. "I've watched the movie on the holoprojector at home before, but to the see it at a real, honest to the gods drive-in movie theater is such a special treat!"

Ricky propped himself up on a pillow and grinned as her white paw ran down one of his long ears, then he reached down and yanked off the tee-shirt he was wearing. "Oh, now what are we doing?" the white-furred she-wolf asked in a husky voice. "That must be the rabbit coming out in you."

"Actually I've got to make a little trip," he apologized as he pushed her paw aside from where he had unbuttoned his blue jeans. "I've got to go back in time to save my dad and his buddies near a place called Baddon Hill, but you wait right here and I promise I won't be too long. I'll be back before the second feature begins, I really promise. Here, get yourself another drink." He handed her some cash before he pulled a pair of black fatigues on and a Kevlar combat vest. Then after draping a pitch-black cloak over his shoulders, he disappeared.

She shook her head as she sorted through the bucks he gave her, setting several aside because the dates printed on them were still in the future. "He's getting sloppy," she softly sighed with a smile. Hoping out of the fancy custom Lobos Z1 van, she sighed once again as she pulled at her uncomfortable period-appropriate polyester twill sweater shirt and then slightly wiggled her tail as she yanked at the waist of her tight denim jeans. Her movements drew the attention of a couple of younger wolves who whistled and howled at her. "Sorry boys, you're too young for me," she called out as she winked at them before sashaying her way to the ladies' room, only to find herself standing in a long line.

Ricky was back by the time she returned to the van with the couple of soft drinks she had bought and he stood there bare-chested, with his long ears hidden inside a knit woven reggae style cap. The two teenage wolves were chatting with him about the painting which had been airbrushed onto the side of the van. It was of a wolf in chain mail holding a fainted white-furred vixen in his arms. One of the wolves lightly punched the smaller canid, who they thought was a fox, on his arm and laughed when they saw her coming. "You're gonna score dude!" the other one snickered.

The lights darkened and she briefly looked away from the wolves and up at the large wooden screen to see that the second movie was now showing. "The Other Side of Midnight?" she said with a shrug. "I never heard of it."

She climbed up into the van only to find that he was under the blanket again, but he quickly climbed out to grip her paw and help pull her into the back. Then she was surprised when he closed the doors. "Now you and I are going to do the other thing they used to do at the drive-in movies, besides actually watching the movie."

"Oh and what is that?" she snickered as he pounced on her.

"Making out," he whispered in her ear before his muzzle found hers.

Afterward, he lay snuggled in her arms, while they listened to the movie playing outside and neither one of them cared that they were missing the show. Both began chuckling when they heard one of the young wolves proclaim to the other, "I've got to get me one of those shagging wagons!"

"You've got to get a girlfriend too!" the other one snickered back.

"So what are we going to do now lover boy?" Natasha asked as she rubbed Ricky's ear. His right foot began to thump the wall as he sighed in bliss. "We can't stay here all night…can we?"

"Why not, my tribe owns the drive-in?"

"Of course, HER tribe does," Natasha muttered and the tone in her voice told him that she was a bit jealous.

"Nockotia is long dead," he quickly answered as he sat up and took her muzzle between his paws. His amethyst eyes looked lovingly into her icy blue eyes. "I now love you."

"Did you ever bring her to the drive-in?"

"Never, I did all of this for you and you alone."

"Then let's go someplace else, maybe up into Tundratown where we can park somewhere that looks out over the Polar Strait?

"I'd love to do that, but I never learned how to drive and I'm pretty sure that you've never driven a car before either. "

"Then can we time jump home?"

"I can try, but I'm still woozy from doing it today."

"You did it three times…right?"

"I guess we really are stuck here at least overnight?" he answered with a nod. "Who knows where we'd end up if I tried again?"

After a few minutes of cuddling together as they listened to everyone else leaving after the last movie was finished, she gave out another sigh.

"Now what?" he asked.

"Before we marry, I want her permission first."

"You want Nockotia's permission for us to marry?" he said as he suddenly sat up in surprise.

"Yeah, why not?"

"I knew it! So, that was the secret that she wasn't telling me during those last few years. She kept telling me that I should look for someone else to keep me company after she died. That sneaky fox, she already knew about you and me!"

"So I guess we get to meet after all?" the wolf chuckled. "Has anyone ever told you that you live a complicated life?"

His ears were flat as he looked at her before he grinned and pounced on her like a happy fox again.

* * *

**489**

Bleddyn paused while he looked over at several wolves offering fresh fish to their shrine of Lupercalia, the wolf goddesses. No fox ever made offering to their god, for their nine-tailed Kitsune was a trickster god and always took what he wanted by using his wits. "Move it fox!" Cadoc called back to him and with a flick of his tail, he took off trotting after his clansmammals and out into the gathering darkness.

They were not the only foxes who were being sent to scout the army's trail. Bleddyn could see several strangers, foxes dressed in green tunics and most were also carrying hunting bows instead of spears. Hundreds of foxes had taken to the mountains, all with the same goal of finding a safe passage toward the distant mountain and its hillfort.

They were several hours from their former campsite when they hid in the rocks alongside a trail in a small valley. "Don't ya kin they be further tay the bloody south?" a wild-looking bear cursed to his companions as they huddled around a small fire. "I dinna like this Tavish, her da tis nay going ta be 'appy wid us fer losin her!" The bear pulled his blue, green, and deep scarlet checkered tartan cloak tighter around his shoulders.

"Wild ones from over the wall," Cadoc softly whispered. "Can you make out how many?"

Bleddyn shook his head as he strained to see better.

"I kin thars sixty-four of us oot thar!" a deep feminine voice answered his chieftain's question. "Ye foxes are nay too sneaky in mah book."

The fox turned to see a large arrow pointed at his snout. "Since ye be foxes, then ye taint be fray the north o' the wall," the reddish furred she-bear continued. "Nay, most o' their kin fled the sea wolves or lost their bonny tails."

"Who are you?" Cadoc snapped as he shoved his spear so it touched her flank, but the burly she-bear didn't seem the least concerned.

"Merida of Dun Broch," she answered with a grin. "If ye be Arthur's mammal, then ye kin put that pig sticker aside."

Cadoc's ears flicked in surprise as he heard someone else behind him and he whirled to face two wild-looking gray foxes in loincloths, each was pointing their flint tipped spears at him.

"Simmer down ye bloody lot!" the bear called out. "Canna ye talk to them, they've been following us like lost cubs? The only thing I ken understand from them is Arthur."

"Who are you?" Cadoc asked in Old Fox. The two gray foxes relaxed their spears and wagged their tails.

"We came because we were told by the sea folk that Arthur needed help," one of the foxes barked and whined back. "Tell us where Arthur is and we will bring the rest of us to his aid."

"What do you mean by the rest of you? Are there are more of you gray furred foxes out there?"

"No, we came with two boatloads of Tatánka. We came to help Arthur."

* * *

The trail up the mountains was steep and rough, so they had to stop more than once for Sir Cai to catch his breath. "Too much wine and mead in my old age," he chuckled. "My days of marching in an army are long past."

"Our friend from the future isn't doing much better," Bors chuckled. "He isn't in the best of shape."

Nick sat on a nearby rock and also panted. "I'm in the best shape of my life, it's just we don't walk around so much in the future," he finally called back to the bull.

"What do you do, fly around with tiny fox wings?" the bull laughed out. "Like little fairy foxes."

Aideen shook her head and smiled at Sir Bor's words and then her ears drooped as she looked over at Galahad. The other fox was sitting away from the others, with his spear propped up against a tree, and he was staring at his paws.

"He's never killed before," Sir Bors whispered to her. "His tribe is a peaceful lot and I doubt they have seen war or battle for many generations. When he yelled at you earlier, he wasn't mad at you. No, he was mad with himself for what he had done. Taking a life is not an easy thing for you foxes, for, despite your reputations, you are not as prone to violence as we bulls."

She hesitated as she watched Galahad, but the bull elbowed her and almost sent her toppling over with the blow. "Go on!" he hissed.

The vixen stood up and walked over towards the wild fox, she didn't say a word when she sat down close to him. He looked away from her for a moment and then as she put her arm over his shoulder, he began to cry.

"Taking another life is indeed never easy," Sir Cai sighed.

"Well unless you're a bull!" a voice said and they turned to see Sir Lionel standing there with the tails of two wolves. "They got in our way, so I killed them. We need to get moving before more come. Tristian says they are still to the north of us and the old fort is several leagues ahead of us."

With a grunt, Sir Cai stood and shouldered his pack. "Then we go onward towards our destiny," he dramatically stated to the others.

It was almost morning when they came into view of Mount Badon and they could see a small fire burning within the remains of the old ringed fort. "We are not alone," Sir Bors softly grunted. "Someone has already arrived."

Cautiously they climbed up the hillside with weapons drawn and shields ready. But what met them inside was not the enemy, but an old goat in a black cloak made from raven feathers.

"Well, it took you long enough!" Merlin called out as he sat by the fire drinking that strange hot drink he called tea. "The others should be here by dawn and Arthur with his army should arrive by evening tonight. Before he does, I have important work for you foxes."

* * *

**Ricky's new Lobos Z1 van would one day be "found" in a used car lot by Finnick and the fox will buy it for a great price.**

**The movie, ****_The Other Side of Midnight_****, was based on writer Sidney Sheldon's 1973 book by the same name. It was released in conjunction with ****_Star Wars_****, which the studio feared would fail. The studio made the bold decision to distribute ****_The Other Side of Midnight _****only to those theaters that agreed to book ****_Star Wars_**** as well.**

**Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival based around the wolf. The legendary founders of Rome, the demi-gods Romulus and Remus, were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants.**

**The blue, green and deep scarlet checkered tartan worn by Merida of Dun Broch (Clan Dunbroch) was created by Pixar for the movie and is actually registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans**


	41. Escape & Caught

**Chapter 41: Escape & Caught **

* * *

"**_You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns."_**

Mark Twain from _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_

**Nicolaus escapes with help and in the near future, Ricky has is caught by his aunt in the hayloft with Nockotia. Meanwhile, in the far past, Nick confronts Merlin the Magician. **

* * *

**Present Day **

Nicolaus squirmed in his hospital gown. "I was promised that I could meet with Nick Wilde, where is he?" the agitated fox demanded. "What did you do with my wife?"

"Mister Wilde is currently unavailable," the intern lied as he finished drawing yet another vial of blood.

"Look I've been stuck with needles, prodded in parts of my body which my wife hasn't even touched, jammed under one kind of scanner after another…JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" he pulled at the wires stuck to his chest. "Who the hell said you could shave me to put these damn things on?" Pushing the larger lynx aside and gave a yelp as he yanked off the sticky sensors. Then, before the intern could react, he ran towards the door.

"Stay put fox!" a large tiger dressed in black combat fatigues growled as he put a paw out in front of Nicolaus in a vain attempt to block him from leaving the room.

The tod slid under the tiger's arm and sprinted down the hallway. "MAAARRRIIAA" he yelled as he ran. A large ram stepped out in front of him and there was the crackling sound of a taser baton as it hummed to life, before he slammed it down on the fox's back.

"NO!" Doctor Nutley screamed as he ran to stop the ram's strike. Nicolaus grunted as the electrical current shocked through his body and then he slumped onto the cold white tiles unconscious. "You might have damaged the device!"

He felt himself being carried and his ears twitched when he heard someone who sounded far away talking. "May have fried the device…we can't….it better not be damaged…" Nicolaus then when limp as he slowly slipped back into the darkness again.

Down the hallway, Agent Topas Minos frowned as he tried to pass the two security guards who were trying to keep him from checking on Nicolaus. "Get out of my way, I still have jurisdiction here!" he hissed at the much larger ram. "The ZBI still has both of the foxes under our protective custody." Despite the cat's protests, the guards refused to move.

The tod awoke and strained at the restraints which held him firmly onto the hospital bed mattress. Twisting and pulling, he slowly worked them loose enough to free a paw. Quickly he undid the remaining straps and slipped out of the bed. He stalked his way to the door and frowned when he saw through the window that the ram was standing just outside. He pressed his ear to the wood and listened to several doctors having a whispered conversation. They were discussing him in a precise clinical manner as if he was some type of new virus to be studied.

"It may have been damaged, but if we cut it out, it might paralyze or even kill him. But since he's only a fox, who cares?"

Frantically, he looked around inside the room. The door was locked and even if he could find something to pick it with, he still would have the ram guard to contend with. The window looked shatterproof and he was on the third floor, which was too far down to drop or leap. He glanced upwards and gave a thin smile when he realized that there was a fairly large air conditioning vent in the ceiling. It was going to be tight, but he just might be able to wiggle his way into it and then down the ductwork to another unguarded room.

Slowly he pushed the bed underneath the grill and then propped a chair onto the mattress. Gingerly he climbed onto the chair and precariously balanced himself as he reached for the grate over his head. He wobbled some as he fought to gain purchase on the edges and then he finally pulled at it enough for it to pop free. Gripping the edges, he gave a soft grunt as he pulled himself into the opening, squeezing into the metal box. At first, he panicked that he might have become stuck, but he managed to squirm his way completely inside.

The gods knew what they were doing when they created the sly fox, for he was nimble and flexible enough to writhe his way through the dusty, but smooth, metal ductwork. Finally, he saw another opening and tried to peek through the grate cover. Below him was some sort of laboratory and it sounded empty. Gingerly, he pushed open the grate, grabbing it before it could fall and then slowly leaned forward headfirst to look around.

"Well that is a fine predicament that you've got yourself into!" a young male voice called out and he looked over to see that a teenage goat was sitting at a desk looking up at him. "Let me get you a ladder from the closet, so you don't fall and break your fool neck."

"Have you called security?" Nicolaus asked as he slowly lowered himself from the opening and twisted so he could stand upright on the upper ring of the ladder.

"No, and I don't plan to do that either."

"Why not, you do know I'm trying to escape?"

"I'd hope so, I heard what they are planning to do to you and well, you're worth more to me alive than dead. At least you are from a scientific research perspective and although I have already collected enough samples from you and your mate, there is more to you than even I can currently understand. Those idiots out there don't realize that the time travel aspect of what is happening here is far more important than that toy stuck in your spinal cord. Somehow and in some way, you are still connected to Nick Wilde and I want to figure out how and if you too can time travel?"

"Look kit, what you are doing is dangerous, and if you get caught helping me…"

"I won't get caught, I've already hacked this building's security and camera systems years ago. I know the security network better than the techs who built it."

"Still…"

"Now listen to me!" the goat snapped as he pulled up the building schematics on a laptop. "Your wife is here in this room, get her out and then head to the east side of the property. I have some friends who can get you under the fence and from there they will smuggle you into the city where you can hide."

"What about the alarms and radios?"

"I've got that handled, plus there is going to be a big bang which will happen in one of the labs that will create a diversion."

"Again, what do you want of me?"

"I'll come looking for you one day, let me find you."

"If we can get back to Maria's homeland, ask for me at the village church. I'll leave word with the priest."

The young goat nodded.

It wasn't students who were waiting outside the fence, but ZBI agent Minos and the cat in the black suit used his old friends to smuggle them out of the city and back home. When they asked him why he was doing it, he just smiled and said that since he grew up in the region, that Maria was like family to him. He also said that he didn't like what was happening to them and so he decided to save them.

Not long after that, Nicolaus and Maria fled back to her home village. There they went far into the hills that overlooked the sea and settled in a little farm, which was nestled in the protection of their friends who would warn them when someone came looking. Something did arrive, but it wasn't what anyone could have imagined. Maria had just given birth to their two sons and the doctor had just left, when there was a knock on the cottage door. Thinking it was another villager coming by to see their babies, Nicolaus threw open the door to greet the newcomers, only to stare in surprise at the white robotic machine which floated before him. Safely tucked into its mechanical arms was a basket and inside of the basket was a baby, a strange-looking child with long rabbit-like ears and the body of a fox. Gingerly, Nicolaus reached over and took a note from the basket. The machine then sat the basket down and just disappeared.

"Nicholaus, only you can save him," Nicolaus read the note out loud to Maria. "It says its name is Richard Stuart Wilde, Nick Wilde's son with Judy Hoops. A fox and rabbit halfbreed, isn't that supposed to be impossible? The letter is signed by Whitehorn, but he says for us not to call him. What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but the baby is hungry," the vixen said as she took the strange child to her breast and began nursing him. "We will figure it out later."

* * *

**Sixteen Years into the Future**

"Everyone out!" the middle-aged vixen ordered the younger girls and the two sixteen-year-old tods. "Jason quit gawking at her and leave the barn. You're acting as if you've never seen a half-naked vixen before?"

"I haven't," the fox in the overalls grumbled.

"You need to hide your magazines in a better place than under your mattress!" Maria sarcastically replied. "Where did you get your paws on a copy of Hot Vixen Magazine anyways?"

"Mom!" Jason whined.

"You used to give us baths before," Cassia said to him as she took his paw and pulled him towards the door. "When we were little."

"Sisters don't count!"

"You think that when I'm older, my chest will fill out like hers?" Cassandra added. "Hers are almost as big as mommy's."

"Gods!" Odysseus groaned as he shook his head at his sister. "Really?"

Ricky sat there, he tried not to grab at his long ears and pull them in front of his eyes. He wasn't sure where he got that habit from, it must be rabbit thing. "Aunt Maria…ah, listen for just a moment… I really didn't mean to…look, it just happened…okay?" he incoherently stuttered out in an embarrassed sounding tone in his voice.

"So I don't see you for weeks upon weeks and all I do is sit around this place worried that you might have been hurt or killed," Aunt Maria called up to him. It was evident that she was trying to act stern, but was failing. Finally, she started laughing as she held up a robe. "It is good to meet you Nockotia!" she finally greeted the other vixen in Old Fox.

"How do you know…?" Ricky began to ask.

"My dear, you told me that she was coming to visit yesterday afternoon. We had a nice chat over a cup of tea and you gave me something for her to put on."

"You told your aunt about me?" Nockotia happily cried out as she hugged the even more embarrassed looking tod buck. He was, after all, dressed only in a loincloth and did have a half-naked teenage vixen clutching to him in front of the vixen who had raised him.

"Well of course he did, it just was an older version of him who came by," Maria answered the vixen's question. "Now you two need to get down from that loft and Ricky, I would suggest you take a shower out back while I will draw this poor child a nice hot bath. She smells a little too…ah, natural."

"Just great, I get the cold water!" the fox rabbit sighed as he watched Nockotia and his nose gave a rabbit-like twitch as the vixen's tail swished while she leaned over and peer down below her before she figured out how to climb down to where the older vixen was holding a robe. "I'll need a cold shower after watching that," he whispered to himself as he pulled a pile of straw into his lap. "I mean a really, really cold shower."

"I'll send the boys back out with some clothes for you to put on when you are clean," his aunt called out as she draped the robe around the other vixen and directed Nockotia towards the house. "Come on dear and we are going to get you cleaned up and dressed."

"What do you mean by dressed?" the younger vixen asked. "Is there something wrong with what I am wearing? Waah-i-ald has never objected to what I wore before, even when I wore nothing."

"I'm sure he didn't dear," the older vixen snickered.

"Gods!" Ricky huffed out as he flopped back into the hay. "I am so dead!"

* * *

**489**

The old goat in the black cloak almost choked on his sip of tea when he saw the fox, he stood up and stared at Nick with a look of wonder. Nick on his part, realized the goat looked somehow familiar and then his eyes locked onto the strange medallion the wizard was wearing around his neck. Springing towards Merlin, he grabbed the goat's cloak and shoved him backward. "You've got a watch!" he snarled. "Who the hell are you?"

Merlin almost fell over at the sight of the fox's snarling fangs. "You're Nick Wilde!" he exclaimed. "So this is where you and Hopps both ended up?"

"Just who are you?" the fox snapped back. "You're going to take me to find Judy!"

"He's Merlin the Magician!" Sir Cai called out. Nick felt a pair of strong hoofs grip him and pull him away from the goat.

"Calm down Nick!" Sir Bors said as he dragged the fox away from the goat.

Merlin gave a sigh as he looked over at the foxes. "Come on Nick, we need to talk."

The others watched as the goat and the fox from the future walk off into the darkness.

"Nick, I can't believe that you are here?" Merlin softly said. "I haven't seen you since you disappeared all those years ago from the university."

The fox stopped and stared at the goat, "What do you mean all those years ago?"

"I was there that day when you and Judy used the watch to time jump, I can understand that you don't recognize me because I was only a teenager."

"You're that Whitehorn kit, that snotty muzzled pain in the ass?"

"Yeah, I guess I was rather full of myself back then?"

"So you can give me the watch and then I can go find Judy?"

"It doesn't work that way, you don't have the power to use the watch. Think about all that has happened, it was always Judy who could use the watch and not you. Every time that you have jumped, she was there and when you were stuck in the nineteen twenties after she died, you couldn't leave. You had to wait for another version of Judy from the future to use its power."

"But you are using it?"

"I am, but we modified it greatly and I had to undergo extensive partial DNA replacement using Judy as a source, a rather long and painful procedure."

"Then you will have to transport me like the watch does for both me and Judy."

"It doesn't have that ability, it seems that only I can use it alone and I can't time jump with others."

"Then you can't help me and I'm stuck here?"

"There is always your son…"

"My son?"

"We didn't know he existed until just a day ago. There was always a time anomaly which we knew of, something we could never pinpoint who or what it was. In fact, we even took to calling him Aion, after the ancient god of time. Anyways, he accidentally popped into the university yesterday with a rather attractive young vixen. He had been wounded by a knife welding jerk during one of the civil rights marches and we patched him up."

"So you know where he is?"

"No, he time jumped away and then an older version of him came back for the girl. He kickboxed the snot out of a guard and then threw me across the room."

"Why would he do that?"

"I think the probe, we sent looking for the watch that you and Judy had, must have spooked him. It seems that Timehopper Mark 1 was always confused by his presence and was chasing him through time, instead of finding you two..."

"This drone, is it white?" Nick yelped out as he frantically grabbed Merlin's cloak again. "It took Judy and my son!"

"Then I can go get it to come back after you!" the goat added, but then he stopped and looked around for a few moments before he shook his head. "Look, Nick, your being here may have just solved a problem I am having. You were a cop who has trained with the K-9 Unit, so just how much do you know about explosives?"

* * *

**I will return to what happened to Judy later in the story.**


	42. Lessons Learned

**Chapter 42: Lessons Learned**

* * *

"**_Know that I love you Tristan. Wherever you go, whatever you see. I will always be with you."_**

Isolde in the Movie _Tristan & Isolde _

**Gawain faces another challenger and Mordred is unhappy with the knight. Sir Tristan and Aideen learn the tale of how their brother died from a fox who was there when it happened. **

* * *

**489**

"Gawain, you have to stop fighting every flea-bitten boar who challenges you!" Mordred growled. "If they kill you…"

"They haven't yet," the knight replied a little too curtly to his king. Glancing over at the Bear King, he saw his cousin's jaw tighten. "With all due respects your majesty," he quickly added.

Mordred huffed as he looked out towards the still retreating enemy army. "I need you to stay alive," he softly added. "We were both trained by good Sir Ector in the art of war, but you and Arthur both have fought in many battles while I just…ah, socialized my way around the land."

"Nice way of saying your drank and whored your way during the nights, then kissed up to the nobles and their daughters during the day," Gawain chuckled as the king gave a small smile.

"Kingdoms are not always threatened by outsiders, there is an art to politics and I am afraid that is more where my talent to rule lays then it does in my sword arm. I do not want to be another Uther, a king remembered only his ruthless brawn and not for his brains."

"He did die awfully bad."

"So if I order you to quit taking these challenges, will you do so?"

"You are my king and I am your subject."

"Now, I am not sure if I should be relieved or even more worried," the king scoffed.

This last challenger, his third, wouldn't have any songs sung about him by the bards. Gawain had crossed the field to meet the boar, but this time there were five other warriors who had joined his challenger to "observe" the battle, as they tried to claim. Gawain knew it was probably a trap, especially since one of those warriors was the fat Lord Stearc.

"Stearc," Gawain sighed as he looked over at the fat obnoxious boar before he went to meet the latest challenger. He had already killed another boar named Stearc earlier and that warrior had died with honor. "We will call that one Stearc the Squealer!" he announced to all around him.

"Six to one, those aren't good odds even with that porky piglet among them," Togodumnus chuckled. "Those are bad odds for anyone but me."

The rabbit warrior named de Hopps looked up at the huge bear and shook his head. "It's a trap!" he said as his nose twitched in anticipation. "You should take some of your own warriors to even the odds. Let me get my wood ax and I will join you."

"No, I'll face them alone. If they attack me, then they will dishonor themselves. But my small friend, if they kill me then I am expecting you to sprint out there and put your ax blade between that fat little piglet's ears."

"It would be my pleasure," the rabbit farmer turned warrior laughed.

Armed with only his trusty sword, Galatine, and a shield, the knight threw back his shoulders and strode with determination towards this challenger. This warrior boldly announced he was Grimbold the Slayer as he waved his spear towards his army and reveled in their cheering. Gawain sighed again when he realized that by the slurring of his challenger's words and by his erratic movements, the boar already had too much to drink. "You don't have to do this!" he called out to the warrior. "Come back when you are sober."

"I'm going to kill you and use your skull to drink my mead from bear!" Grimbold roared. "I'm going to use your…"

"Shut up and just kill him!" Stearc snapped, cutting off the champion's words. "Come on, you have been boasting about doing it since last night."

Gawain frowned over at the fat lord and sheathed his sword. "He is in no shape to fight today…" the bear began to say, but the warrior squealed out a war cry and ran forward with his spear leveled as if he was going to run the bear through. The knight awaited the spear's point to almost hit his shield before he shifted and grabbed the upper haft with his sword paw. He jerked the spear forward and past him, which caused the baffled boar to stumble and release his hold. When Grimbold looked up at the bear, he only saw the edge of Gawain's shield as it slashed down and the blow sent him spinning before he crumpled to the ground stunned.

"It's over!" Gawain yelled out loud enough for both armies to hear.

"No!" Stearc screamed as he drew his own sword. "Kill him!" The four other boars drew their own swords and advanced on the outnumbered knight.

"There is no honor in this!" the bear growled. "You will sully your name and your family's honor. You will become outcasts, following a foolish lord who too has been banished in shame."

The boars hesitated when they heard what the knight had said and realized that the bear still hadn't drawn his sword.

"I SAID KILL HIM!" Stearc yelled as he raised his sword while he charged the knight.

Gawain moved so fast that the others didn't realize he had scooped up Grimbold's spear until it was too late. With a grunt, he threw the spear at the fat boar with so much power that it pierced the wooden shield. Now off-balance, Stearc stumbled as he dropped his shield and by the time he looked back up at the knight, it was too late. The bear then slashed down with his now drawn sword and took the boar's sword arm off at his elbow. The fat boar did squeal like a piglet before the blade came back down and ended his life.

Gawain stood in his battle stance, his shield was raised and his bloody sword at the ready, as he stared at the four other warriors before him. "Who's next?" he growled. They slowly lowered their shields and sheathed their swords. "Good, now get that drunk off the field and sober him up."

"What of Lord Stearc?" one of the warriors asked.

"I will strip him of his valuables and then leave his fat carcass on the field for the raven's to pick at," the knight answered. "He had no honor and so he deserves no better."

None of the boars objected, but just left the bear standing alone as the champion upon the field of battle.

Hours later the armies stopped again as the remaining five boar chieftains approached the Bear King's army. Once again, they were holding Adler branches, the signs of peace, and so King Mordred, along with Sir Gawain approached them. "You lied to us!" Heretoga called out to the king. "You said that Arthur was on his way here, but he is not and he was never was planning to join you."

"They say that all is fair in love and war!" Mordred simply stated. "I gave you a chance to go home, but you picked the path of war."

"Then perhaps it is time for that battle?" the older boar replied. "We outnumber you by more than two to one, surrender, and we will let you keep your throne as our vassal."

"You dare offer me my kingdom as your puppet?" the Bear King began to reply, but his words were cut off by those of Sir Gawain.

"Milord if I may?" the knight growled. "It is time to come clean between us Heretoga, you and I have seen battle too many times in our lives. Of all who stand here, we have been in a shield wall and we have seen the horror which befalls the side which first gives out."

Heretoga did not answer but looked the knight straight in his eyes.

"Stearc the Fat, revealed the desperation your warriors are feeling when he attempted to ambush me. He thought my death would demoralize our army and they would start to desert, his desperate foolishness cost him his life. I have watched your ranks and I have seen what is happening in your camps, most of your army is raw and inexperienced. You only have a few hundred veteran warriors available and the remainder of your army is just farmers playing at being soldiers. They are the sons of the sons who settled the coast under Vortigern and most of those who were warriors from your villages have already perished in during previous battles, first against Uther and now against Arthur. If it comes to shield against shield, we have the advantage of experience and we will break your ranks, then the slaughter will begin again. Crops will rot in the fields when those who sowed them this spring do not return home for the harvest and there will starvation in the coastal villages this winter."

The warrior still did not answer, but looked back at the ranks of boars.

"You also were betrayed, just like we were, by the Ram King. He promised you that he would bring his rams, with their siege weapons to batter down the Hare King's warren's walls. Payment for your service in this awful deed was land, the land belonging to the House of Cwningen and maybe part of that which belongs to my king. You were used by Aldroen, by now you must surely know that he was never your ally. Return to your warriors and decide if your broken agreement is a good enough reason to sacrifice their lives?"

The boars left and returned to their ranks.

* * *

**489 **

Aideen sobbed against Galahad's strong chest after a fox, who had arrived at the hillfort with others, had confirmed her brother's death. "It twas love, not carnal lust, which hath brought milord low," the older red fox in a brown worn tunic had told her. "I twas there with the scouts at the battle, we fought spear to shield and tooth to claw against the wild raiders from over the wall. In the heat of the battle, your brother came to blows with An Sionnach himself. By the light of the blazing buildings, we watched as fox battled fox upon the battlement. They each were weaving and ducking, striking at each other with a ferocity which twas greater then I hath ever seen before. Then your brother lost his footing and fell, dropping his spear. He barely deflected the other fox's spear strike as he drew his long knife, it twas Arthur's own knife Carwenna who our warlord had given to your brother for his service. Sir Bedivere got to his feet and pounced upon An Sionnach and they struggled together. Finally, milord drove his blade into the traitorous fox's belly and struck him dead. He then cut off An Sionnach's head and held it up by the ears for all the raiders to see and at the sight of noble Sir Bedivere holding the blood stained head of their traitorous leader, it broke their morale and they fled."

"Afterwards they say that good Sir Bedivere twas bewitched by the fair doe Arawen, some might saith it thus, but I knewth it twas true love at first sight. Aye, they both resisted it, but in the end, it was fated to be so. They knewth that neither her father King Cyflym, nor the Church, would approve of such love and so in great haste, they fled the land during the bitter darkness of night. It twas in hope that they sought a safe place where they could share their love with each other in peace, but they were hunted down by the king's guard and captured.

"They wert tried before the Bishop himself, who after learning that they hath already consecrated their love, condemned them both to burn in the purifying flames," The fox watched as the vixen began to cry again and then he looked over and saw Sir Tristan also listening, the knight's jaw was set firm and his eyes narrowed as he too heard the story.

"We wert chained together, comrade to comrade, and forced to watch as they dragged the two lovers out of their filthy cells and towards the two stakes which hath been driven into the mercilessly cold ground," the fox continued. "Good Sir Bedivere stood valiantly facing his accusers, dressed in only in sackcloth and still unrepentant in his love. Then they shoved Arawen before him, she too was in sackcloth, and she struggled in vain against her guards in an attempt to break free so she could just touch her lover one last time. We foxes were surprised at the cries of protest which arose from the ranks of common folk, those who hath come to watch, for they all knewth it twas good Sir Bedivere who had saved them from An Sionnach and his raiders. King Cyflum had to call upon extra warriors to hold them back, but still his hard heart did not relent to their cries for mercy."

He hesitated for a moment, because other foxes had gathered around them, and then he continued his story, "Before they could do their dastardly deed, brave Sir Gaheris stepped forward and took a holy oath that he would restoreth justice to his house and return honor to his sister, by challenging Sir Bedivere to knightly combat. We all knew that even a bishop hath not the authority to deny such an honorable challenge. It twas evident that Sir Bedivere did not fight with his normal vigor during the duel and he didth lowered his blade at the last moment to receiveth the fatal stroke, the rabbit knight cried in grief as he tenderly held his slain best friend's head in his lap. Then they released Arawen, she hadn't cried out and shed no tears as she walked towards her dead lover's body, but there wert tears in our eyes as she knelt in the grass and leaned over to kiss him one last time. Aye, before her brother could stop her, she seizeth his large blood-stained knife and drove its sharp blade into her very breast. Thus, perished both lovers and we wert told that Sir Gaheris fled in his grief and became a monk in the deep oaken woods."

The storyteller hesitated as he heard Aideen's sobs, "The bishop wanted our deaths too, but even King Cyflym dared not to kill those who follow Arthur and so we were cast out of the warren. That night I heard that they laid Arawen to rest in the churchyard, but they cut off the head of valent Sir Bedivere and placed it upon a lance before the warren's repaired gates. His body twas tossed into the river, as if it twas not but trash. The bishop twas much angered when it was discovered that the head of Sir Bedivere and the body of fair Arawen were both stolen in the night. It tis said that the good folk, the common folk, did take their bodies and laid them to rest together in the same burial brier, a grave which tis hidden deep within the great woods itself. Mayhaps even now the good knight and his fair maiden doth now laugh and make love in the soft green grass of the Great Kitsune's heavenly meadow?_"_

"Where is Gaheris now?" a fox snarled and Aideen realized it was her brother speaking.

"He hath returned to us after his brother's most foul murder milord," the fox answered. "He doth travel with foxes from the northern mountains."

"And you have allowed King Cyflym to still live?"

"Aye milord, even after he joineth with the traitorous Aldroen for at first, the Hare King thought it twas a fox that slayeth his only remaining son Gareth. He went as far as to raid our lands and tookth your father prisoner. But then good King Lot found out that it twas a hired assassin who killed Gareth and tried to frame us foxes and so your father twas released."

"Then I ask you again, why does he still live?"

"Because thy father hath proclaimed that none of us may seek vengeance upon the Hare King and his subjects. He saith that Cyflym is not worth the effort, for he now sits upon the throne of the House of Cwningen drunk in his mead and just a hollow broken shell of the king he once twas, despised by his own vassals. As for his subjects, they showed the mercy which was denied thy brother by both Cyflym and the Church, by burying him properly with the one he loved.**"**

"Then I shall have words with my father about this!" Sir Tristain growled as he turned to climb up on one of the weed-covered ridges and from there watched as even more foxes began to arrive, never in his life had he seen so many fox warriors. Some he could tell were rangers from the southern woods and others from the clans to the north along the wall. The House of Llwynog had gone to war, but it was not against the House of Cwningen and their drunken king. No, they had gathered from near and far to wage battle against the Ram King and his allies.

His ears flicked when he heard someone scrambling up to join him. He turned to see it was the same fox who had told the story about his brother earlier. The fox looked him over and sighed.

"What!" Sir Tristain demanded.

"Thy father tis a good fox, but he is not here," the storyteller answered. "All of us hath no leader, besides Arthur. We shalt need you to lead us the upcoming battle, cans't thou place aside thy hatred and uncertainty to be that valent knight we doth seek?"

"But?"

"We art foxes and not wolves, thou knowest if thou commands us to wage war against the Hare King, most of us wilt nay follow? For amongst us, a chief is honored for who he is and not by his birth."

"I know, but still my brother was murdered."

"Yet there is a rumor that thou art in the company of another fox who dared tay loveth a rabbit? Thy brother tis dead and whilest it tis true that he twas innocent of the sin which the Church claimeth, it is also true that Sir Gaheris saved him from the pain of being burnt alive and he did so out of love. Art thou a good enough a fox to accept that truth and by knowing it, tay forgive Gaheris for thy brother's death?"

Sir Tristian lowered his head and cried. After a few moments, he wiped the sides of his face with his paws and nodded.

"Then honor thy brother's memory and tell others his story, the woeful tale of true love, that of Bedivere and his Arawen. Teach it to other bards who come to thee in the future, so that their story might live on after these troubled times art forgotten."

As the older tod turned to leave him, the knight called out, "Who art thee?"

"I am just a son of Blwchbardd and nothing more," the fox called back as he disappeared into the crowd of gathering foxes.

* * *

**Vortigern is traditionally blamed for allowing the Saxons to settle in Briton, in reality it is believed that they came before the Romans had even left the island. Reference is made to the Saxon Shore, but scholars are** **unsure if this means that the area was settled by Saxons or if the forts built there were to keep it safe from Saxon raids. Arthurian legend has Vortigern inviting the Saxons as mercenaries and that they then turned against their paymaster. A peace conference was called between the British nobles and the Saxon chieftains, during which the Saxons drew hidden knives and butchered the Britons. This event was called the "treachery of the long knives'.**

**The ancient bard Blwchbardd is recorded as having been one of the five renowned early Welsh bards, alongside the famous Taliesin. **


	43. Brotherhood of the Red Paw

**Chapter 43: Brotherhood of the Red Paw**

* * *

**_My God, the power  
Was once in vows when men believed the King!  
They lied not then, who sware, and through their vows_**

_Idylls of the King_ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

**Sir Sagramor's mission comes to an end, but he has two armies between his soldiers and Londinium. Nockotia is fascinated by this new wondrous future and she also learns Judy's fate. Merlin lays out his plan to the foxes, as even more allies arrive. **

* * *

**489**

The knight stood in the trail and flicked his blond mane, pushing it away from his chestnut furred muzzle. With a soft neighing noise, he looked over at an even larger black-furred stallion in silvery scale mail. "I think Merlin has tricked us and sent us down the wrong trail before he disappeared," Sir Sagramor finally said to his companion. "Have we heard from our scouts yet?"

"Nope, the lopes are still gone," the tall black-furred war stallion answered. "Those rabbits and hares are still following us, trying to hide in the bushes. They really are not the best at stalking, probably just farmers wondering where we are going."

"Any military scouts spotted, such as foxes or wolves?"

"No milord, all we've seen are those cute little bunnies with their little sharp sticks and I think they are pretending that those are spears. Do you want the boys to catch one or two for questioning?"

"No, all you big lugs will do is chase them all around of a bit, those rabbits are too quick for you to get your fumbling hoofs upon. Take some of the soldiers instead and find out what is ahead of us. The ground around here is well trampled, so an army has been here less than a day or so ago. We should come upon one of their supply trains and rearguard soon."

"From the tracks, they seem to be following a really large group of boars. So, do you think we found this Arthur?"

"I hope so because we need to warn him about the jackals. But, I really wonder who these last two assassins are going after?" The answer to his question was not far behind them.

"Damn horses, we are never going to catch up with them at this pace," Togodumnus grumbled as he jogged after his three other companions. The antelope scouts had found the dead bodies of the jackals that Merlin and the stallions had killed in battle and they were now frantically trying to catch up to their unit to report to their commander.

The lead scout hesitated and ducked off the trail. "Someone is ahead and they have spears," he softly whispered as he gave a signal to hide.

The antelopes watched as a half dozen hares gathered on the trail, they were totally oblivious of the scout's presence. Togodumnus could hear them talking about a group of armored horses not far ahead, they kept mentioning the name of Arthur and the Bear King.

He watched as one of his companions crept even closer, but one of the hare's ears flicked and he turned towards the source of the sound. "We have intruders!" he warned as his right paw began to thump the ground like a drum. The hares and rabbit bucks started to scatter.

"Wait!" Togodumnus called out. "We came from Arthur's camp!"

The small hoppers stopped running and looked back at them with noses twitching. "Ye came from Arthur?" a large hare in a blue tunic asked, he held his oversized spear towards them. "We art with Gawain and the Bear King's army."

"Those war stallions you are following serve the Church."

"Why does the Church send warriors this far north?" one of the hares suspiciously challenged.

"Truth is that we are after heathens."

"Well, there is a whole army of those damn heathens ahead of us."

"Then we have a common purpose, do we not?"

The hare didn't answer but nodded his head as and his companions took off to report to their commander and the antelope ran forwards down the trail towards their soldiers.

Several hours later, Togodumnus rested as he listened to their commander report to the tall chestnut stallion dressed in the silvery scale mail armor. "Then it is over, those two make thirteen and we have finished what we swore a holy oath to do," Sir Sagramor called out to his soldiers. "Now we return back to Londinium, for we are still in the service of the Church."

"Good idea, except we have two armies between us and home," Togodumnus politely pointed out. "It seems we are going to have to either backtrack east or go further north…"

The knight held up his hoof when he noticed that a lone bear was walking towards them, he carried a shield that with the image of an oak tree upon it. "A challenger milord?" one of the soldiers asked. "But his sword is still sheathed."

"Then he comes to talk," the knight answered. "Mayhap he is an emissary of the Bear King?"

* * *

**Sixteen Years into the Future **

"Even as a baby, Ricky was unique," Nicolaus continued to tell the story. He smiled as he watched the sixteen-year-old hybrid try to show the young vixen how to use a fork, to say that she was rather awkward in her table manners was being generous. He gave a soft chuckle as he remembered his wife talking about trying to get the Nockotia to take a bath. First, she was awed by the electric lights and then the water which came out of the faucet, especially that it was warm. Then the bubble bath made with flea shampoo was her next fascination as she blew the suds all over the bathroom. Maria then had to explain that she should use a towel, instead of shaking off. Finally, the older vixen got her to put on the bright yellow sundress which the older Ricky had left. The concept of underwear, however, was totally baffling to the younger vixen.

Clearing his throat as a pea shot by his plate, Nicolaus continued his story, "By then, we knew that I was different and uniquely not of this time stream, an anomaly of time. Ricky on the other paw was also unique in that he was conceived out of time and therefore also not within the same time streams himself."

It was obvious that Nockotia was doing her best to follow him, but it was all so confusing to her.

With a sigh, Nicolaus continued his story. "Anyways, little Ricky was dying, and no matter how hard they tried to figure out why the doctors could not understand the cause. He ate, pooped, and cried just like any newborn but still, he withered away. A doctor friend of ours finally realized that he was being more or less pulled apart by…"

"Honey, I think you've lost her with the science," Maria hissed over and then winched when several more peas shot off the poor younger vixen's plate. Nockotia set her fork down in embarrassment.

"What Uncle Nicky is trying to tell you is that he was like a battery to me back then, I'd get weak and he'd hold me. I would somehow draw energy from him and it would make me better, we were like that until my powers kicked in at puberty," Ricky explained to her.

"Then his love for you kept you alive?" she asked. "But, what is a battery?"

"You got it! We'll talk about batteries another night, but first, let's eat."

She giggled as he picked up his chicken breast and bit into it with gusto, instead of using that thing they called a fork and that useless unsharpened knife. The remainder of the fox family began doing the same thing, so she smiled as she joined them.

The family laughed and talked, quizzing Nockotia about her life and how she and Ricky first met. Finally, the young vixen asked a question, which caused everyone to become quiet. "Waah-i-ald, where is your mother, did she die during your birth or something?"

Ricky's long ears fell flat behind his back and he shoved aside his plate. "She is lost in time to me and I can't find her."

"I don't understand? Nockotia said as she softly gripped the hybrid's arm.

"She isn't dead dear," Maria finally answered. "She is...well it is complicated."

"My birth almost killed her and she is now gone, it is my entire fault! I should have never been born, I'm a freak and I hurt her so bad!" tears began to flow from Ricky's eyes. "I am an abomination…" he cried out as he ran from the room.

Maria began to stand, but Nicolaus put a paw on her shoulder and looked over at the younger vixen. "Go to him Nockotia, he needs you to comfort him. He doesn't understand that what happened to his mother wasn't his fault."

She found him in the barn sniffling as he wiped his face with his paws. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so dramatic…" he began, but she stepped up to him and pulled him against her.

"Shhh!" she softly whispered as she stroked his ears. His eyes closed and he gave out a cute sigh. "Shhh!"

Nicolaus held Maria's paw as they stood in front of the cottage and looked towards the barn. "What happened to his mother wasn't his fault, why can't he understand that?" he asked the vixen next to him."I think now that he knows about Project Chronos, it is time to tell him the full truth."

"I dreaded this day, he will be angry with us for not telling him sooner."

"The doctors with Project Chronos have tried to save her, maybe now he is now strong enough to try himself?"

"I'm afraid somethings are beyond the powers of mortals, just how do you save someone who is stuck in time?"

* * *

**489**

Nick's eyes widen in shock as he peeked into the black canvas bag which the old goat, who was calling himself Merlin, had sat up the ground far from the fire and the other foxes. "These are military-grade explosives," he muttered in a surprised tone. "Where did you get these?"

Merlin gave him a knowing look. "All I need you is to blow up an old stone bridge after the foxes let the wolves chase them across the river." the goat replied.

"I don't kill!" Nick quickly snapped back.

"Well, you shouldn't have to if you do this right."

The stomping of a large bull's hoofs caught their attention and both Nick and Merlin looked up to see that Sir Lionel was approaching. "So Nick, do we win this battle?" the bull innocently asked. "Come on and spill it fox!"

Nick winced at the look Merlin cast his way before he finally answered, "I don't really know?"

"Well if everyone knows about us in the future, we have to win…right?"

"If you fight well, we might win," Merlin snapped. "Nothing is ever certain."

"How would you know?" the knight asked in confusion. "Oh right, you were born backwards in time."

"Something like that," the goat in the raven feathered coat sighed. "Now go and watch for Arthur's army, please let me know when he arrives."

As soon as the knight was gone, the old goat grabbed Nick by his tunic. "You idiot!" he hissed out in anger. "You can't go around telling everyone that you are from the future!"

"I got mad and it just slipped out," Nick replied. His ears had gone flat upon his forehead and his tail was curled protectively under his legs. "Does it really matter that much?"

"The future is not really fixed, it can change! I have seen things which have happened in the past, change the future for the worse. Wars more terrible than any you can imagine caused by something slightly altered in the past. That is why Project Chronos was started, to fix those anomalies and reset history back on the correct course. Your son was one of the primary causes for history to be damaged."

"Still?"

"STILL NOTHING! Don't you ever do that again! Do you realize what will happen if they get overconfident and then lose this battle?"

"If Arthur loses…wait, he can really lose?"

"If Arthur loses, then he will be forgotten in history! Those stories you read and all those stupid movies about King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable will never be told. Chivalry will never be born and without the Code of a Knight's Honor, the belief that might must always serve right will be forgotten."

"But…"

"Without that code of honor, the Baron's Revolt will never happen in the future. That revolt is essential to the creation of modern democracy, for they will force the king to sign a charter that will protect the rights of the commoners and royalty alike. That charter must be created and the king must sign it, or the future will be one where warlords and kings battle over ruling the world with more and more advanced weapons."

"Sorry, I messed up," Nick sighed as he looked down at the ground in a submissive manner. Then he looked back up at the old goat. "If I do this, you will promise to take me to Judy?"

"I will see that the probe returns to take you back to our laboratory in the future. I'm sure she and your son are there."

Nick nodded and glanced back at all the other foxes gathering in the distance. "If I don't do this, then what will happen?"

Arthur and his army will be outflanked by the sea wolves. He will lose most of his army and many of those foxes you see over there will die. Nick, somewhere in that group is your ancestor, he dies and you will never be born. No Judy Hopps, no first fox cop in the ZPD, no son, nothing!"

Nick sighed and looked down at the bag. "So I need to blow up a bridge, that's all you're asking me to do?"

"One bridge and then after the battle, I will go back and have them send the probe to pick you up. Now go fetch Sir Tristian and the other chieftains, for it is time to reveal our plan.

About an hour later, a crude map had been sketched into the dirt and several of the foxes gathered around the old goat in the black-feathered cloak knew the terrain which he was pointing out. "Just how many of the sea wolves are we talking about?" one of the reddish furred warriors asked. He wore two eagle feathers woven into his head fur, showing he was a clan chieftain.

"Well over a thousand at least," Merlin answered. "I'm not asking you to engage them in a standing battle, but just to get them to chase you down into the gorge and towards the Legionnaire old stone bridge.

"Why would they chase us and not continue to the upriver crossing?"

"Greed," Sir Tristian answered the question as he flicked his white-tipped tail. "They will hunt us for the bounty on our tails."

"But once they cross the old bridge, won't we still be hunted?"

"I'm not expecting you to stop them, just delay them long enough for Arthur to defeat the boars and their allies. When he does that, I'm sure they won't want to continue southwards and turn back towards the wall instead."

"If we don't do this, then they will…" the chieftain began to ask.

"If we don't delay them, then we will have to fight them up here on the slopes behind us," Sir Tristian quickly answered. "I'd rather fight them like a fox, in the woods and in the mountains. We will strike fast and kill quickly before we fade away."

"And they will track us down the valley to the bridge," Codac added. "Can we hold them at the bridge?"

"We won't have to," the knight answered. "Merlin's apprentice Nick will take care of the bridge. He will destroy it before their very eyes."

"How can he…?" another fox began to ask, but he became quiet when he looked over at Merlin."

"Magic!" someone else softly muttered in an almost revert tone as now every fox looked over at the so-called wizard.

"There are more foxes arriving!" a sentry called out. "They are with some wild looking bears and…" the fox became silent for a moment, before he continued. "I'm not sure what those are?"

Merlin and Nick climbed to the crest of the mountain and looked down at the new arrivals. "Are those bison?" Nick asked. "I didn't know they were living on this side of the ocean?"

"There are some far to the northeast on the mainland, but these are from some island in the middle of the ocean," Merlin answered. "Some island that I can't find on any chart in the future or the past."

"Merlin, ye alt goat!" a voice called out from below. "I ken no believe that ye art still bloody alive?" The reddish fur she-bear in a plaid laughed as she began to climb up the narrow walkway leading to the summit.

"Merida, this is a surprise!" Merlin called back as he scrabbled down the hillside to greet her. "What brings you and your clanmammals to this side of the wall?"

"Aye, ye dinna think if Wart needed me and mah laddies that we'd no kin come a running. The bear named Merida picked up the old goat and hugged him. "If thar tis a fine scrap, dinna ye think the bears o' Dun Broch would nay be here?"

"You brought friends too?" the old goat asked, once she sat him down and he recovered his breath from the bear hug.

"Aye these braw beasties say they too came fer Arthur, but they nay speak a bloody word I kin understand, just snorts and other fine jibberish. Thar tis two wee gray foxes wid them who the other foxes can bloody well talk tay."

"Well, you've come early, Arthur is not here yet."

"It figures the wee cubby would be taken his bloody time aboot it."

"Then it is settled, you and your clan, along with the bison stay here with me!" Merlin said as he turned to look back up the hill. "Sir Tristian, it is time for you foxes to march towards the pass and do your duty. Nick, reach into the bag, there is something in there for the foxes."

Nick pulled out a linen cloth that had been dyed midnight black and had a large red paw print sewn on it. He held it up for all to see.

"If you are going into battle, you must have your own banner!" the wizard called out to all the foxes who had gathered, there was now well over three hundred.

"Brothers!" Sir Tristian called out as jumped upon a rock in the center of the field. "Brothers, I call upon thee to join me upon this quest. We art to do battle with the sea wolves." There was concerned murmuring in the crowd of gathered foxes. "Aye it tis true that they be fierce foes and we be but a small merry band, yet these art the hell-spawned raiders which hath terrorize our vixens and children. Too many of our kith and kin hath been brutally slain by these depraved sons of Hades for a mere bounty upon our tails and truly this cannot be allowed to continue unavenged. I am calling upon thee to take up thy shield and spear to defend our families and clansmammals, to bring righteous vengeance upon these intruders' very souls. Let the bards sing of this day, let all the world knoweth that we hath been ill-treated for far too long and that today we hath taken our destiny in our own paws. Let those who belittle us know that we shalt nay take it no more, for this tis the time of the fox!"

There was cheering from the crowd and a few shook their spears towards the heavens above. Nick had affixed the banner to one of the bison's long flint tipped spears and carried it to where the knight was talking.

"Now brothers, come forth and swear upon this banner that thou shalt strive to bring vengeance against these devils. Come forth and pledge thyself to the Brotherhood of the Red Paw. Vengeance shalt be ours brothers!"

"For the Brotherhood of the Red Paw!" voices called out among the cheering crowd.


	44. Time of the Fox

**Chapter 44: Time of the Fox**

* * *

**_"From that time, the citizens were sometimes victorious, sometimes the enemy, in order that the Lord, according to His wont, might try in this nation the Israel of today, whether it loves Him or not. This continued up to the year of the siege of Badon Hill…"_**

_De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae_ by Gildas

**The foxes go to war against their cousins the wolves and Nick fails at his task. **

* * *

**489**

Sir Tristian was correct that at the sight of a large group of foxes, any of the tenuous discipline that the sea wolves might have once had as a cohesive military unit quickly dissolved. It became a mad scramble for the bounty as chieftain after chieftain led his shipload of warriors after the seemingly red ghosts in the wooded mountainous terrain. The knight had split his small army into three units of approximately one hundred vulpine warriors each. The first unit was used to draw the wolves into a merry chase and right into the ambush of the next group of foxes, who in turn would lead them into another ambush. Military experts would later call this as being a "defense in depth" or an "elastic defense" strategy, which the knight would never get credit for inventing. Before they left Mont Baddon, Nick had asked Merlin why he had never heard anything about the Brotherhood of the Red Paw. The old goat just shook his head and told him that most of the oral stories were recorded by monks centuries later and the Church would not allow anything to be written praising a fox. After all, foxes were blamed for original sin and therefore cannot be heroic, only sly and untrustworthy.

The ongoing battle was piecemeal and confusing at best, at least for the wolves, and lasted for hours.

A wounded gray-furred warrior had his back to a tree, around him his three other shipmates lay slain on the weedy ground next to a couple of dead foxes. His ears flicked when he heard the nearing howls of others of his kind. He slashed with his sword at the three foxes who jabbed at him with their spears and then quickly weaved away before he could strike. A spear thumped against his shield, even as another stabbed into his unprotected thigh, but his sword finally hit flesh and a fox yelped as the smaller warrior spun away and collapsed onto the ground.

"Fenrir will munch upon your bones in hell before this day is out and we shall claim your tails!" he growled out a curse. His own tail began to wag when he heard someone approaching through the underbrush, but then he realized that instead of being saved, three more foxes had arrived. They leapt at him and one managed to avoid his clumsy swing as he grabbed at his shield while two others gripped his sword arm. He tried to shake them off as he snapped at them with his bared fangs, but they had pushed his back further into the bark of the tree behind him. His eyes widened as he looked up and saw yet another fox hold up something which looked like a bow on a stick.

Wild'e didn't say a word as he pulled the crossbow's trigger and the iron-tipped bolt shot out with a twang. His aim was true and the bolt hit the large wolf in his neck just where his mail shirt ended. The powerful projectile punched through both fur and flesh as it drove itself into the tree behind. The foxes released the wolf who now hung there pinned against the tree as he gasped for air while he choked in his own blood. None of the smaller warriors made a move to release him from his misery as he slowly died, for the time of mercy was now long gone.

"Brother!" one of the other warriors called out to the wounded fox who lay panting on the ground. "We must leave this place for others of this kind are upon us."

"I can't," the warrior gasped out. "My time hath come," he groaned out and the other realized the blow had opened up his chest down to this stomach and the dying fox was holding in his own entrails. "Let me go to the mead hall of the Great Kitsune, so I may frolic in his Great Meadow."

A couple of the warriors knelt at his side, the howling was drawing closer. One of them held his own knife and leaned forward. "Leave not my tail to be dishonored by those hell hounds," the wounded fox gasped out. There were tears in the eyes of the other warrior as he struck true to free his brother fox's soul. They left no tails behind for the wolves to claim.

Nearby, Beddyln rolled under the legs of another wolf, who had been distracted by a couple of other fox warriors. He drove his spear upward, under the raider's mail coat and into the wolf's unprotected groin. The larger warrior screamed in pain, dropping his guard long enough for the other foxes to drive their spears into his body and another raider was slain.

"Pfft!" Beddyln spit out as he wiped the blood from his face. "I'll not do that again, that was disgusting!"

One of his laughing clansmammals passed him a torn chunk of the wolf's tunic to wipe his face off.

"Cordac!" a cry came out and they turned to see the chieftain was lying still on the ground in a pool of own blood. Beddyln watched as one of the warriors put a paw out to close his dead cousin's eyes and then gave a grimace as they sliced the beautiful furry tail from the now dead body, no wolf would profit from his death.

He looked over when they heard the sounds of howling from behind them and then towards the gorge which descended toward the old stone bridge, the wolves were playing right into their trap. Trees filled the small vale and undergrowth had overgrown onto the old Legionnaires stone roadway. Some trees even struggled to cling to the steep heavily sloped rocky limestone hillsides on both sides of the trail. There was one area of the old road which was strewn with huge boulders and rubble from an avalanche, indicating the unstable nature of the gorge. If Arthur's army was here, they could have held the wolves at bay with a shield wall, but they were foxes and outnumbered. He turned and ran after the others when he heard the raiders approaching, their pursuer's howls increasing when they spied their prey fleeing towards the river.

The fox frantically ran for his life down the old stone road, but he slipped when he stepped into a hole. Pain radiated up his leg and he gave a slight yip as he tumbled onto the stones, he instinctively knew that his ankle was broken. Glancing towards the bridge, he realized that the others were too far ahead to notice he had fallen behind and so gingerly, he gripped his spear and unsteadily got to his feet. The pain was intense as he hobbled into the underbrush towards the trees. Higher and higher he limped until he finally had to drop to his knees so he could crawl up the ever more rugged hillside. Abandoning his shield and spear, he crawled further and further up the steep slope in the vain hope that he would not be seen by the wolves below.

He knew from the sound of sniffing and growling that they had his trail, as desperately he pulled himself higher and towards what appeared to be a small ledge where he decided it might be a good place to make his last stand. His paw brushed against something in a green bag and he briefly cocked his head in confusion at what it might be, but the sounds below him spurred him to frantically continue his climb. His paw then found what he thought was a vine and he grabbed at it to yanked himself up before he realized it was some kind strange green rope, it began to give way before it suddenly went taut as he used it to help him reach the ledge. A shout of triumph from below drew his attention and he looked down to see two chain mail clad wolves rapidly climbing after him.

With a groan, he heaved himself onto the flat ledge and panted while he briefly rested. One of the wolves let out a curse as a rock tumbled free under his foot and Beddyln drew his knife as he prepared for his doom. Slowly he stood up with the intentions of pouncing off the ledge and into the first warrior, hoping that his weight might cause them both to tumble down the mountainside to their deaths. At least this way, he might take one of the devils down with him.

"I wouldn't do that!" a voice called out behind him. He quickly turned, almost falling from the pain in his ankle, to see that there was someone sitting in the shadows covered by a black cloak.

"Who are you?" he snarled at the creature.

"Someone who was not expecting company," was the answer he got to his question. "Especially since you have brought some friends with you."

"They are not my friends!" Beddyln growled in protest to the sarcastic manner that his question was answered. Then he saw a red busy tail behind the stranger as it wagged slightly. "You're a fox?"

"Somewhat, now crawl over this way and I will take care of your pursuers." When the other fox stood up, he noticed his strange rabbit-like large foot paws. "Come on move it fox!" the stranger urged him as he stepped past him. "Now get out of my way and don't touch anything back there!"

Beddyln crawled past the stranger and leaned back against the stone. He watched as the unarmed stranger first looked down at the wolves and then stepped back.

"We've got another one!" the first wolf yelled out to his companion. "Hurry up and we will kill them together!" He pulled himself onto the ledge and drew his large knife as he grinned at the stranger in the black cloak.

"I'd give you a chance to surrender, but I see you have two young fox kit tails tucked in your sword belt," the stranger growled out. "For their deaths, you deserve no mercy."

Both Beddyln and the wolf stared in surprise as the fox-like creature leapt high into the air and bounced off the side of the nearby boulder. Before the wolf could defend himself, the two powerful feet hit him squarely in his chest and sent him stumbling backwards towards the edge of the ledge. The stranger then landed on his feet for just a moment before he leapt into the air yet again and twirled around, with his right foot lashing out and slamming across the wolf's muzzle, sending him now falling onto this companion below. Both of the armored raiders tumbled down the steep hillside and slammed into the trees with a bone-jarring crash.

"Well that was exhilarating!" the creature said to the fox behind him, who was now staring at the two long ears which had appeared when the cape's hood slipped off. "Now please get away from the detonator…ah, that box. It's not yet time to blow things up."

"What are you?" Beddyln muttered in fear.

"Complicated," was the answer he received as the rabbit-eared fox knelt down next to him and reached out for his ankle. "Now let's take a look at that leg."

* * *

It had taken Nick hours to set up the explosives as Merlin had instructed and to run the wires back to a safe spot behind a boulder, now it became a waiting game. In a time without any more effective communication than waiting for a running courier to bring him a word of where the battle was taking place throughout the day, it was a long and tense wait. It soon became clear that the wolves had taken the bait and were now chasing after the foxes towards the bridge. The series of ongoing battles had been brutal on both sides and this wasn't a shield wall marching against another, but a flowing series of vicious paw-to-paw skirmishes with both sides taking casualties.

The howling announced the advancing wolves as they charged down the ravine, seemingly driving the now panicked foxes before them. "They art almost at the bridge!" Sir Tristian called out as he watched from the other side of the bridge while his red-furred brethren rushed past him. The taller and more powerful wolves had caught up with the rear of the fleeing foxes and there was now a melee upon the bridge itself. "Nick the bridge, use thy magic!"

"No, it will kill our own!" the fox by the strange box yelled back. "Everyone needs to be clear first!"

He was too late, as several dozen wolves had rushed across the bridge and had begun forming a shield wall to stop the milling foxes from attacking.

"Nick, do it!" the knight pleaded as he seized up his spear and began to join the others. Upon the bridge, more wolves were packed together as they tried to rush to join their comrades.

Nick shook his head in disbelief, Merlin had told him no one would die but he knew that the explosion would kill and maim anyone on or near the bridge. He still hesitated, he had never wanted to take another life and now it seemed he had no choice.

Watching from the ledge, Beddyln heard the stranger curse. "I knew he couldn't do it!" the fox-like creature growled as he picked up the strange black box next to him. "Here grab my arm and hold tight, this is going to be rough because I wasn't planning on having a passenger with me when I jumped."

Confused, the wounded fox grabbed the smaller stranger's arm just as he pressed a red circle upon the box.

Across the fast-moving river, Nick finally reached out to press the button to set off the military charges. He was startled because he hadn't yet reached the button, but the bridge suddenly exploded! That wasn't the only explosion, as charges went off all along the ridgeline across the river. He watched in horror as the mangled bodies of wolves flew from the bridge into the river and then as the ridges began to crumble into avalanches of boulders, trees, and other debris that rumbled down upon the wolves standing on the old stone road across the river and buried them. Hundreds of lives were snuffed out within a matter of minutes.

As the dust settled, the stunned foxes and the few surviving wolves shook themselves off while stood up to stare with disbelief at the disaster across the river. It was then that the thirty or so surviving wolves suddenly realized that they were still in danger. "Shield wall!" someone yelled. "Form a shield wall."

"At them!" Sir Tristian snarled. "Victory is ours!" A wave of red fur charged into the armored wolves. It was brutal, it was savage, and it was final. Spear met shield, claws and fangs tore flesh, blades drew blood as the foxes literally overwhelmed their larger foes. With horror, Nick saw a fallen wolf drive his knife into the side of a fox, even as another fox warrior clawed at his eyes. A spear put an end to the raider's struggle and the surviving smaller warriors pounced upon their next prey. The was a yip as another group of foxes forced a wolf back to the edge of the demolished bridge, he slipped and fell into the swirling waters below, but not before grasping a fox warrior's arm who he dragged with him into a watery grave.

Tristain fell, his shield was shattered and his spear broken. His opponent lifted a bloody sword above him to make a downward strike upon the helpless knight, but the blow never came because a crossbow's bolt slammed through the wolf's chain mail and into his heart. Tristain rolled away and used the blade of his broken spear to slice into the back of a nearby raider's knee, bringing the now hamstrung wolf to the blood-soaked ground before another spear ended his life.

By the time the day was finished, well over one hundred foxes had fallen in battle and of the almost one thousand sea wolves, less than five hundred limped back towards the wall.

* * *

With a gasp, Beddyln realized that both he and the stranger were no longer on the ledge, but on the banks of the fast-flowing river. His stomach churned as if he had eaten something bad and the stranger was vomiting next to him. He sat up and watched as the foxes battled the surviving wolves in front of the destroyed bridge.

"Let's not do that again!" the stranger groaned. "Thanks pal, I have a date with a really sexy she-wolf and now I'm going to have to rest at least a day or so before I can jump again."

"Who are you?" the fox asked yet again. "Are you a god?

"I told you that I am complicated," the stranger answered as he unsteadily stood up and looked back across the river at the devastation he had wrought, his ears drooped down behind his back. Finally, he muttered out, "I remember being told that war is hell and that general was right, still it had to be done."

"You must be a god!" Beddyln began again as he remained kneeling in the river pebbles. "You have slain all the wolves in one mighty blow."

"I am far from being a god!" the long-eared fox-like creature scoffed as he stood and looked at the devastation, then he began to limp away. "Maybe I'm a devil, who knows?"

Beddyln watched his fox-like savior disappeared into the undergrowth before he found a stick for a cane and slowly limped toward the gathered surviving foxes. When Nick heard the other fox's story, he frantically ran down the river bank and searched for his son in vain. The hybrid had learned many things in his already sometimes bitter long life, such as sometimes you do have to kill to save others and also how to hide, even if it is from the ones you love when it is not yet time for you to meet each other.

Ricky hid in the woods for over a day before he returned to Natasha at the drive-in, she knew how to sweetly chase his nightmares away, almost as well as Nockotia once did. By the time he returned to her, he had gathered up his false bravado, for there was no use to burden her with the terrible thing he had done in the name of saving the future. Gods, he had fallen since Nockotia had died and he wondered if he could ever repent for what he had done? He had barely stripped off his fatigues, grateful that he had at least bathed in the river before he returned so he did not smell like the clothes he had discarded, and pulled on his pair of jeans when he heard a knocking on the doors. "Shit!" he whispered to himself as he grabbed up a Rasta style knit cap he had bought back in the 1960s and tucked his ears inside. Opening the door, he looked down at two teenage timberwolves standing there. He gave a small tight smile at their startled faces when the saw the bare-chested fox, they must have seen Natasha leaving the van and thought that another wolf was inside.

"Cool van!" one of the young wolves exclaimed as he peeked inside.

The beautiful white-furred she-wolf found him standing outside of the van talking to the two wolves when she returned. He had killed god knows how many wolves and now he was casually talking to two young wolves about the artwork on the side of a van? This is what his life had become, for better or for worse.

In the distant past, the Battle of the Old Stone Bridge was over, and even though it became unrecorded folklore remembered for centuries, like the Old Fox language, before it too finally faded from the memories of the generations yet to be born.

* * *

**The Romans were renowned builders and throughout those areas of the world which they once ruled, they left behind magnificently constructed stone roads and also sturdy stone bridges. Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular and constructed from tight-fitting stone which had been sealed in place with their legendary concrete. Vittorio Galliazzo has tabulated 931 known surviving Roman bridges located in 26 different countries! **

**This is not the young sixteen-year-old, who had just fallen in love with Nockotia, but an older and more cynical Ricky. He has experienced many wars before and in his mind, he knows that life can be cruel. He has killed before and will do so again. **

**Foxes and wolves in reality: After wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone Park, researchers found something interesting happening to the red fox population, it increased. It seemed that during the absence of wolves, coyote dominated the land and they were known to kill the foxes because they both hunted many of the same smaller prey populations. The wolves, however, hunted down the coyotes because they competed with each other over the larger prey and did not bother the foxes. **


	45. Strength in Numbers

**Chapter 45: Strength in Numbers**

* * *

**_Listen, O little pig! is not the mountain green?  
My cloak is thin; for me there is no repose;  
Pale is my visage; Gwendydd does not come to me.  
When the men of Bryneich will bring their army to time shore,  
Cymry will conquer, glorious will be their day._**

Black Book of Carmarthen XVIII

**We meet more of those who are opposed to Arthur as the bear's allies continue to gather upon Mons Badon. The foxes return victorious but battered. **

* * *

**489**

The two boars watched as their companions trudged along the old Legionnaire's road towards the south, despite the Fisher King's intervention and the disastrous sea battle which had forced them to land north of the old wall, the army before them was one of the largest ever seen since the empire had left the island.

Esa gave an aggravated sigh as he looked southward, causing the other chieftain to glance over at him. "What ails you?" Cedrick finally asked.

"This isn't going as expected!"

"There was nothing that we could do about the sea battle. We lost many ships and their crews."

"It's not just that, I'm concerned about Aldroen! Why hasn't the Ram King's army joined us as promised and then there are the wild clans, they have no discipline to fight in a shield wall."

"They have at least have agreed to do as you command since you slew Natanleod.

"That duel was unnecessary!" Esa snapped back in anger. "It cost us a good leader and the goodwill of his warriors."

"Natanleod only brought three hundred with him."

"Still our numbers are not where I had hoped that they should be for such a large campaign. My brother started this by letting Aldroen talk him into this grandiose plan. The Seven Houses were supposed to be fighting each other, but they have not shattered. He also had told me that with Cai gone on a mission to the seek out the King of the North, that the bears would be too disorganized to field an army and yet they have."

"His plan sounded plausible, it just didn't happen the way we hoped."

"At least the bulls are fragmented with King Lot's death, they haven't chosen his successor and that leaves them stuck along their wall. I won't have to worry about them crossing over and raiding our villages to the north, my brother had stripped the land of our warriors before he died."

"Well over four thousand have come, including your kin from across the sea. Your brother Alrich never really recovered after the last couple drubbings that Arthur gave him, that made him careless in his anger."

"I was counting on your chieftains to bring more warriors too."

Cedrick frowned as he looked down at the ground. "Neither of us expected the Fisher King to get involved in a land war, it cost my army twenty-two longships and their crews. By the time that disastrous sea battle was over, we were lucky that a couple thousand of us survived. What of the sea wolves, it is said that they number close to a thousand?"

"Pirates and raiders, they too would be useless in a shield wall. I sent them to outflank Arthur, maybe it will work? They have gotten too obsessed with Aldroen's promise of a gold coin for each fox tail they bring him, where is that ram going to get that kind of money here on this island?"

"Well after Arthur is defeated, they won't stick around. The Ram King…"

"He's begun calling himself a Caesar!" Esa laughed.

"Then the Caesar," Cedrick said that name with much disdain, as if he was using it as a curse. "This Caesar has promised to let them rape and pillage the Wolf King's lands. They will take what they can carry, along with as many slaves which will fit aboard their ships, and sail home when they are done. We will only see them again in a few years from now when they return to raiding our coastal settlements."

"I am afraid that is true about the wild clans which have joined us too. A couple thousand of undisciplined warriors and such a mixed group of mammals, once they have pillaged the lands, they will also go home before winter sets in."

"At least the six chieftains from the southern coast have marched northward and once this is over they are expecting the lands of the Hare King for their own. Generations ago they were formidable warriors, but between their battles first with Uther and now Arthur, I am afraid they are just a shadow of their once greatness. I have been told that there are less than three thousand in their army."

"That gives us close to nine thousand boars to go against Arthur and the Wolf King's roughly three thousand warriors. The Bear King has well over a thousand in the field too."

"Against Arthur, I would have wanted more of our kind. We need Aldroen's army of rams and goats. He has another three thousand with him and at least another couple thousand in reserve."

"Then there is our greatest disappointment, Ælle has taken the Church's bribes again and has withdrawn from the gates of Londinium. He will not march north to attack the Bear King's southernmost domain."

"Ælle still has Marc'h to contend with to the south, that wily wolf has held his warriors at bay too long."

By that afternoon Esa realized that they were too late to catch Arthur's smaller army upon open terrain and so he sent for Agravain. The bull was at least still sober at this time of day, but the boar chieftain battled to keep from showing his contempt for King Lot's youngest son.

"They tell me that Arthur is pushing towards someplace they call Mount Baydon or something, tell me what you know of this place?"

Agravain looked around and saw no refreshments were being offered by the boar or any of his fellow chieftains, finally with a deep sigh he answered the question. "You must mean the old ringfort on Mynydd Baddon," he grumbled out. "That old fortress is one of the best in the north, father used to tell us that the local tribe who built it held the Legionnaires at bay for six months from the battlements on top of the mountain. But in the end, it too fell to the Legion's siege equipment and the defenders were slaughtered. They buried the ancient ones under some old standing stones nearby, then the Legion built barracks up there and stationed their heavy cavalry, war horses with their heavy armor. There is not much left upon the mountain now but some old ditches and lot of weeds."

Esa looked troubled and frowned when another chieftain slammed his hoof against his sword before he complained, "We didn't come all this way to sit on our arses at the foot of a mountain!"

"Aldroen has some siege equipment, he used it to breach the wall," the bull offered.

"Why isn't the ram and his army here!" another boar snapped.

"He claims he is holding back the bulls from retaking the wall," Cedrick answered. "Why he thinks that is so important, I do not know?"

"We need his rams here!" Esa cursed. "There is no longer a reason to keep holding the wall anymore, he is delaying."

"We still outnumber Arthur," Cedrick offered. "We can surround him and throw the clans at him first to wear his warriors down."

"They would laugh at us if we asked them to do that!" another chieftain scoffed. "We can barely keep them in their ranks as it is!"

"The sea wolves were supposed to outflank Arthur," Esa added. "Yet we have not heard a word about where they are now."

"They are probably doing what wolves always do, which is sniffing at each other's arses while they wander the mountains, chasing foxes for that damned bounty," was the answer from another boar.

It was late evening when they heard word of what had happened to the sea raiders and where they were going, at least what was left of them. "We were outnumbered by the thousands!" a desperate wolf said as he knelt panting in fear at the boar's hoofs. "The red devils gave us a merry chase through the woods and mountains along the old stone road and towards the river's bridge. We had them trapped, but…but…"

"What?" Esa roared out. "What happened to spook you fleabags to run?"

"It was magic of the darkest kind!" the wolf actually whimpered out. "Merlin the wizard used his magic to bring down the cliffs upon us and the land swallowed many of us up. Those of us who were not slain, have battled our way free and away from that accursed place."

"Magic!" the boar grunted out in disdained as he had the wolf dragged away. "Those idiots must have been ambushed. "

"Now what do we do?" Cedric asked as he tugged on his right horn, a habit he had when concerned.

"We push on towards Arthur, we have no real choice do we?"

"If he is on that mountain, we will never get him off."

"He will have to do something to save the Bear King and his army," Esa said with a grin. "We will send the wild clans to join the southern chieftains and their army."

"Arthur will have to try to save his king," Cedric laughed. "Excellent, once he is on level ground we can crush him!"

"Make that idiot wolf an offering to the One-eyed God, perhaps he will give his blessing to our plan?"

The sea wolf died horribly as they sacrificed him upon a great stone, but the omens were good as two ravens cawed while they watched the boars pull the still living lungs from within their victim's rib cage and spread them out onto his back so they looked like bloody eagle wings. They left the two birds to peck and feast upon the now dead wolf's flesh.

* * *

**489**

By the light of the fire, Constantine watched as Vitus yanked the bound up sea wolf's ears so that the prisoner could see his uncle as the ram, who called himself a Caesar, sliced his short-bladed sword across the hapless lupine's throat_. _The gray furred wolf tried to gasp for air as blood ran down his bare chest, finally, his eyes rolled up and he went limp. "How many came into the camp?" Aldroen asked as he wiped the blood off of his blade.

"About sixty or so," Vitus replied with a grin. "They came begging for their money, while waving some fox tails. A frantic lot they were, babbling about magic and wizard's lightning bringing down some mountain onto them. I had the royal guard kill them for you, all except this one."

"So they fought against an army of foxes? How did Arthur get that many in one place, foxes don't gather like that and never fight alone without the larger army to back them up? They are lightly armed, skirmishers and scouts."

"The wolves were scared of something which happened out there, do you think it was magic? Merlin…"

"Merlin is dangerous and seems to know too much, he also has a bad habit of showing up suddenly when you least expect him. The wizard has done some parlor tricks before, but never anything remotely like dark magic."

"This should give you the grounds to have him tried by the Church for witchcraft and burned at the stake."

Silently the younger ram slipped away and towards the tents of the common soldiers, while he pondered what he had heard. Was the wolf correct and Merlin brought magic against them? He watched while some bored rams rolled dice by the campfire and from what he heard from their talk, there was concern among the ranks about what was actually going on. They had laid siege and slaughtered their one time allies, the bulls, along the wall and if that wasn't bad enough, they opened the gates and allowed thousands of wild clansmammals and sea boars loose onto this side of the wall.

The one lesson he had learned from his father was never to look down on the commoners and, unlike his uncle, he found friendship and companionship with the soldiers and their officers. He also continued training with his blade, taught by those who had learned with experience on how to weld it in battle. They were some of the veterans in the army's ranks who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with Arthur's warriors in shield walls battling the boars and they did not like what they saw that their self-proclaimed Caesar was doing.

He felt someone place a soft hoof upon his arm and turned to face a pretty ewe who was scantily dressed, a camp follower who did chores for the soldiers and offered them companionship of another sweeter kind. "Milord seems vexed," she whispered. "For a few coins, I can make you forget the troubles of the day for just a little while."

Constantine felt her pulling on his sword belt as she yanked him towards a tent. A soldier inside at first grumbled something illegible and then gave him a grin and a wink as he left. Several other ewes nearby looked up from where they were washing some of the soldier's tunics and giggled as he closed the flaps. Perhaps a little softer companionship would settle his mind some tonight?

"Watch it youngin she may have fleas!" someone called from near the fire and there was the sound of laughter at his words of warning. Constantine didn't respond as he unbuckled his belt and let it fall to the ground, after all, who in this camp didn't have fleas by now?

* * *

**489**

Any pretense of his being a legendary and dignified warlord came to a crashing abrupt end when Arthur reached the top of the mountainside only to hear a familiar she bear's Highland brogue. "Merida?" he began to ask before he grunted when he was almost knocked over by the red-furred tartan-clad bear's hug.

"Where the bloody hell ave ya been?" she exclaimed as she stepped back and looked him over, before punching him in the arm.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"Ye dinna bring bonnie Gwinny with ya!"

"Unlike you, she doesn't seem to relish a fight."

"Aye, and ye took say lang getting here that I kin I'd have ta start this donnybrook wid oot ye, just me, mah laddies, and those shaggy beasties over there!"

Arthur's eyes widen in surprise when he saw the large bison lounged around a few campfires. "What are they doing here?" he finally asked.

"The wee gray foxies wert yammering tay Merlin aboot ye being in bloody trouble and they dun came tay help."

"Merlin is here too?"

"Aye, earlier he sent all yer bloody foxes a runnin' tay the northwest tay fight wid some wolves."

"He did?"

"Aye and he tis being just as bloody mysterious as he always has been."

Arthur excused himself and joined the bison by the fire, neither side understood what the other was saying, but the fact that he spent time with them was more than enough. Finally, he went in search for Merlin and found the old goat standing alone on a weedy rampart looking northward.

"The golden hour is coming Wart," the so-called wizard affectionately said as the larger bear joined him.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Arthur softly asked.

"I've done all I can do for you and now it is your time."

"Then you are leaving me again?"

"Not tonight, but soon. I have taught you all I can and now you must remember good Ector's teaching about war."

"I would rather remember your teachings about peace."

"That time will come, at least for a while."

"You sent all the foxes away and left the army's flanks unguarded by scouts, why did you do that?"

"The sea wolves were outflanking you and even though they were not enough to beat you on the battlefield, they would have delayed your army too long and you would have never reached here in time."

"The foxes are fast and cunning, but they are not shield wall warriors. They should have never been sent alone."

"It was their battle to win or lose and their battle alone Arthur, they had to avenge those killed by the wolves for the bounty on their tails. If the battle went as planned, then the sea wolves will no longer bother your army until you are ready to face them."

"Who led them?"

"Sir Tristian, he and Cai are back."

"He is not a warrior, he is a bard."

"Today he was both a warrior and a bard, exactly who the foxes needed to inspire them into battle. His words encouraged them to do more than they thought they could do, for too long foxes have been looked down upon by others."

"I have always held them in high regards."

"I know you let his brother Sir Bedivere led the campaign against An Sionnach and his raiders. You used a fox to catch a fox, but still where were you when they condemned him to the fire for his love of Arawen? Did you march to his rescue or even sent Gawain to stop the Church and the Hare King?"

Arthur hung his head in shame.

"Today the foxes had to prove themselves equals to the wolves, who have always treated them as their lesser brothers."

"Arthur!" a commanding voice called out and the bear turned to see Sir Cai striding towards him. "What the hell did you do when I was gone?"

"Cousin!" Arthur greeted the older bear. "I did what was needed to save the land."

"You made Mordred our king?"

"Mordred was born for the job, I knew that he was the only choice and without a Bear King, the nobles would have sat in council and fretted while the boars took the north. I learned from the splintering of the bulls after good King Lot's death, that it was past time for us bears to be united again."

Cai stood there next to Arthur and Merlin, looking out at the gathering darkness. "Mordred…" he finally mumbled out as he shook his head. "Gods, you picked that prick!"

"Maybe he should have picked Guinevere?" the old goat finally snickered out. "There hasn't been a Bear Queen since Boudicca battled the Legionnaires."

"Things didn't end well for her, did they? Besides I'm sure Wart here didn't want his girlfriend running around bare-chested and smeared with lime." Cai added with a chuckle.

"Gods that would have been one hell of a sight!" Arthur laughed. "But let's not give Merida any ideas, she might try it."

"They are returning," Merlin suddenly said as he pointed towards the dark north. "The foxes have returned."

Return they did, many wounded and the others wore out from their battle. "Twas a merry chase that they gave us, until we finally stoppedth them at the old bridge," Sir Tristian grimly reported to the kings, Arthur and Merlin. "But the battle twas costly for us. Merlin, I thought thy apprentice twas only going to destroy the bridge? He called down the very cliffs on both sides of the old road too."

"That's impossible," the old goat replied in a puzzled voice. "He couldn't have done all that with what I gave him."

"Maybe he is a mightier wizard than you are?" the King Maelgwn suggested.

"Brother?" a soft voice called out from behind them.

"Aideen!" the tod replied as she rushed into his arms.

"Thou art safe!"

"Aye, just a few bruises and nay more."

She stepped back and looked him over before nodding, hath you seen Galahad?"

"Nay, he twas to stay here with you. He hath no business out there with the others, he tis no warrior."

"He went with yon army and I couldn't nay stop him," she replied with tears in her eyes. "Now I can't find him."

"There are still more stragglers," Merlin called out as he watched the trail from the north. He was holding something which looked like two tubes attached to each other over his eyes.

Aideen rushed toward the entry to the old fort and there was a cry of happiness as she launched herself upon some fox, knocking him down into the grassy weeds as she hugged and kissed him. There was much-amused laughter at the sight of the vixen on top of the tod. "That must be Galahad," Arthur chuckled.

"So it seemith," Tristian answered with a soft smile.

"Merlin we need to talk," another fox spoke up and the old goat lowered the tubes as he looked over and saw Nick standing there, the fox's shoulders were hunched over and he looked worn. He gave a thin smile when he saw the object in the goat's hoofs. "Of course you'd have night vision binoculars."

"Ah there is my apprentice, so now we can find out what really happened at the bridge!" the old goat called out as he approached the fox. The kings followed him and stood towering over the fox.

"Nick, this is King Guethelin and King Maelgwn," Merlin began to introduce the stately looking red deer in his black clerical robes and the mail clad wolf. "And this is…"

Nick's eyes were the size of saucers as he stared at the tall handsome bear, who stood before him clad in silvery scale mail, the moon was beginning to rise in the east and in its rays illuminated the warrior standing before him, making one of his childhood heroes look…well, he looked legendary. "You're Arthur," Nick muttered out in awe. "The once and future…"

"Did he just swoon?" King Maelgwn asked in confusion as he looked down at the fainted fox.

* * *

**The ****_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_**** records Natanleod as a mythical British king who was slain in battle with Cerdic and Cynric**

**Marc'h would be the legendary Mark of Cornwall. He is prominent in the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult as the husband of fair Iseult and the slayer of Tristan**


	46. Into the Valley of Death

**Chapter 46: Into the Valley of Death **

* * *

**_Therefore it suits this knight and his shining arms,  
For always faithful in five ways, and five times in each case,  
Gawain was reputed as virtuous, like refined gold,  
Devoid of all vice, and with all courtly virtues._**  
_Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_

**Finnick has a visitor, who leaves him wondering, while in the past Nick finally awakens. Gawain and Mordred's outnumbered army battles for survival. **

* * *

**The Not So Distant Future**

Finnick pulled his robe on as he limped towards the coffee maker in the kitchen, his arthritis was acting up again this morning. The elderly small tan fox hesitated when he suddenly saw his long-eared fox looking godson standing across the room and staring out the window of their private suite in the Palms Hotel and Casino. For some reason, the time traveler was in his black cloak again. "Mornin Ricky, where ya been?" he called out, but he received no answer to his question. "Are you okay Sport?"

"I'm fine," was the rather curt answer. "I'm just very tired."

His companion turned and the smaller fox drew back in surprise at the hard look that the hybrid had upon his face. Ricky's eyes looked like they were cold amethyst colored diamonds as he seemed to glare at him.

"You…you want some coffee?" Finn nervously asked. He had never seen Ricky look this way before and the scent he gave off seemed to be almost primal. "Are you sure you're okay?"

The fox rabbit blinked a few times before he crossed the room and fell to his knees in front of the smaller fennec fox, gingerly the tod buck wrapped his arms around him and gave Finn an almost desperate hug.

"Hey kid, are things really okay?" Finn said as he hugged him back.

"I just wanted to see you one last time and thank you for all you did for me over all these many years. I love you, Uncle Finn."

"Hey, I love you too Ricky. What's all this about?"

Ricky didn't answer, but stood up and gave him a thin smile before he disappeared.

"Hey Uncle Finn, what's for breakfast!" a familiar voice cheerily called out from behind him, startling the small fox. Finn turned to see the long-eared fox hybrid walking his direction, his jeans and tee-shirt were dirty. "I'm starved! Let's grab some eggs and grits downstairs in the restaurant's kitchen after I take a nice long shower and get this mud out of my fur."

"Did you just get here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh nothing," Finn tried to casually answer as he watched while his muddy godson walked back into his own bedroom. Once he was alone, the small fox looked back towards where the other "Ricky" had disappeared. He shook his head when he realized that wasn't the Ricky he knew and loved, but a darker future version of him, one which would call himself only by the name of Aion. He had a bad feeling about things but knew that there was nothing he could do to stop whatever might happen, for he had not been hugged by his godson, but by a god.

* * *

**489 **

"_Hey Slick, are those new sunglasses?" the cute bunny in the light blue tactical uniform with dark blue impact plates asked as she skipped along in front of him._

"_Yep, I finally took the plunge and bought the good brand, so be careful and don't knock them off Fluff."_

_She stopped and put her paws on her hips as she looked up at him. "I don't like them!" she exclaimed. _

"_What's wrong with them, I think they make me look dashing?"_

"_They are mirrored and I can't see those pretty green eyes!" she laughed as she began to walk away from him. _

"_You think my eyes are pretty? Come on Carrots…"_

"_Anxiety, intense emotional stress, along with hunger can cause his blood pressure to drop," _Judy began saying in a very male voice as she looked back at him.

"Wait…what?" he called back to her, then his eyes fluttered open and he looked up to see an old goat leaning over him.

"…combined with the shock from…" the old goat continued Judy's words.

"Merlin!" Arthur huffed out. "You're doing it again! We really have no idea what you are blabbering about?"

"Ah yes, then we will all just agree that Nick fainted," Merlin said with a smile.

"I wanted to know which one of us he was asking if we thought his eyes were pretty," the wolf in chain mail guffawed out in laughter.

"What happened?" Nick asked as he tried to sit up. "Oh, it's you!" he muttered at the goat.

"You just fainted my friend," the bear answered as he handed him a cup of vinegary tasting wine. "Come and rest, your magical exploits must have taken much of your strength from you. Here drink this and then get some sleep, we shall awaken you when the sun rises so you may break the morning's fast with us and tell us of your adventure."

Wide-eyed and surprisingly speechless, the fox took the bowl from Arthur's paw. After slating his thirst, he curled up and slept soundly in his exhaustion.

"There tis movement in the valley below milord!" someone urgently called out, awakening the fox from his slumbers. "The enemy doth approach!"

Blurred eyed, Nick watched as Arthur ran to the edge of the ridge and looked down as boar after boar seemed to stream toward them. "We are woefully outnumbered," the Wolf King growled as he joined the bear.

* * *

**489**

Sir Sagramor frowned while he watched in the early morning light as the army of boars in the distance begin to form a battle line. He and his cavalry soldiers had joined the Bear King and his army as they trudged along, chasing after those who had now turned to face them.

"Look well good knight, for those are the faces of the warriors who will trample the gods of our Holy Church into the mud. First, they will take the north and then strike southward towards Londunium to join their heathen brothers in the south," Mordred dramatically said as he stood there in his chain mail. The crown on the bear's head was surprisingly simple, just an ancient battered band of gold and not as fancy as one would expect a king to wear. "If we hold the north, then the Church will survive. However, if we fall, then the Church will be drive from these lands and darkness will reign here again. A victory here will embolden our foes on the mainland who wish to pillage those lands under the good Church's benevolent protection. It is here and now that we can stop these devils from being triumphant over the Holy Church. The gods do not send angels to win their battles, no indeed my fair knight, they send sinners like us."

The knight looked back at his pitiful few soldiers, forty-six stallions, eight mules, and a half-dozen lightly armed impalas who acted as scouts were all he had with him. He then looked back at the mass of sea boars with their spears and axes. "I don't know about milord, but this seems as good as a place as any to die and go to heaven," the large black warhorse beside him softly commented. "Nice green grass around here too, should make a grand cover for a stallion's grave."

"All I need you to do is get behind them and slash and run, causing commotion to their rear ranks," Mordred continued.

"No!" Sir Sagramor finally answered. "None of you know how to deploy heavy cavalry, we don't slash and run."

"You charge the shield wall directly with your spears," Gawain answered the stallion. "Your armor is thick and the impact will break up the front line of warriors. Sir Ector used to tell us all the legends about the Legionnaires along the wall. Smaller striped horses would fire arrows and your scouts would use their slings to harass the enemy. Once their ranks were clustered together, the war stallions would charge and break their shield wall, allowing the foot soldiers to exploit the opening."

"Your mentor was a wise bear."

"So tell me Sir Sagramor, what do you see about the way that the boars are lining up?"

The war stallion watched the boars for a few minutes before he answered, "Their line to the right of us is where they have placed their best warriors."

"Exactly, they think we will break their line in the center and then they will turn our weaker flank with their numbers," Gawain agreed.

"Then do what they expect," Sagramor interjected. "These boars have never fought stallions before and they have no idea we are even here, we will break their left flank at the same time you break their center."

"We're still outnumbered over two to one," Mordred quickly pointed out. "We could retreat?"

"After they destroy Arthur, they will pick us off before they march south," Gawain replied. "We have to reach Arthur."

"Then we have a plan!" Mordred announced to the other knights around them. "It is time to teach these piglets that this is our land and like our fathers before us, we will keep it free." The bear took off his gold circlet and handed it to a retainer before he pulled on his helmet. "Victory is our only choice."

They lined up for battle like they had time after time, the most experienced and brave warriors in the front row. Each warrior had their stout shields overlapping and long knives drawn, for combat in such tight rank would make a long sword useless. Behind them, the second and third rows had their spears and long axes, the axes which were flared to allow them to hook the top of an opponent's shield and pull it down. Behind these warriors were the lesser armed and inexperienced, mostly farmers and merchants who had come to serve at the king's command. The Bear King's line of warriors was stretched thin, compared to the boars who faced them.

"This is going to be bloody work," Gawain warned Mordred. "We have no fog to hide in this time, it is going to come down to push, shove, and stab. If the war stallions can break their shield wall, then we can roll them upon each other, and once their ranks panic, it's more or less over. We bears have the size and weight, but they've got the numbers."

"I hate the shield wall," was the Bear King's answer. "But we will win."

Gawain nodded to Togdumnus, the large bear just grinned back and answered the unasked order, "I know, stay with the king as if I was his larger and more handsome shadow."

Both armies drew themselves up close to each other, warriors yelling and chanting to gather up the courage for the dreaded battle.

Heretoga frowned as he took his place in the front rank of the left flank and if things went right, the center would give way just as they broke the bear's right side of their shield wall and then they would catch the bears in their trap. He drew his sharp-pointed long knife and prepared for the advancing line of warriors to make an impact with their shields, but it didn't come. He peeked over his shield and watched as the bears and their followers suddenly created an opening in their ranks. This didn't make any sense? The warriors to the right of him had already made contact with the enemy and he could hear the crashing sounds of shields and the cries of the warriors. His eyes widen when he saw what was charging though the bear army's ranks, he had never seen the likes of them before.

Trying to stay hidden behind the shield wall, Sir Sagramor and his small contingent of war stallions pulled on their additional heavy armor, starting with a padded cotton jerkin. Over the jerkin was a layer of heavy scale mail made from bronze and iron plates which were sewn to overlap each other, like the shields of the army in front of them. The mail covered them from head to hoof, tied upon the haunches and legs, to keep them free for movement. Each soldier had a long thick spear-like lance topped with a sharp iron point. Pawing the ground with their hoofs they impatiently awaited the battle to commence. There were none of the normal challenges made between champions this time, as both armies slowly pushed into each other with grunts and war cries. His ears flicked as the curses and screams of pain filled the air when the two shield walls clashed.

"Now!" he ordered his soldiers and they formed a wedge with lances lowered. Galloping at full speed through the ranks of bears and their allies, the stallions gripped their lances tighter as they came upon the line of boars before them. "For the gods and the Church!" he cried out as he felt the jarring impact of his lance as it smashed through a boar warrior's shield and impaled his opponent's body, he shoved the now bloody corpse into the warrior behind. The knight's heavy armored clad body knocked that warrior back into the next as he stomped upon the fallen bodies while he careened further into the mass of boars.

Despite their few numbers, they had crashed through the line of boars, driving them back in disarray. The rear lines were made up of inexperienced farmers and they panicked at the sight of the heavily armored onslaught and ran. The black stallion was to the knight's right and had not only impaled the first warrior, but his lance had driven through the body of that boar and also through the shield behind, before it was stuck in the chest of the warrior holding it.

There was a thump as an ax glanced off his armor plates and Sir Sagramor kicked out with one of his metal-clad foot hoof, catching the ax welder in his face, even as the knight drew his sword in one hoof and a heavy ended battle mace in the other. He brought the mace crashing down and a boar fell with his iron helmet dented, his skull underneath it shattered by the powerful blow. He slammed his sword into another boar warrior's shield, cracking it down the center. Yanking the blade flee, he quickly dispatched the boar with a bloody slash across the throat. There were wild sounding screams and cursing from around him as he silently and methodically killed and maimed any who got in his way.

Togdumnus led the bears as they charged into the gap created by the stallions, he had tossed aside his own shield and now swung a large two-headed war ax into anyone who got into his way. The ax smashed into shields and splintered them, with a mighty swing he cut into a charging boar warrior, almost cutting him in two. Behind him, he heard his king curse as he battled two other warriors, the larger bear's size and strength gave him the advantage as Mordred killed at first one and then the other. The wild-eyed blood-soaked Bear King huffed as he turned and lifted the remains of his shield as he faced yet another boar.

In the center, Gawain had been pushing with all his might against his shield, using his shoulder to help shove forward into the wall of shields in front of him, while trying to stab at any exposed part of the warrior opposing him. He had already drawn blood more than once, but still, both shield walls held. He suddenly stumbled slightly when suddenly the line before him began to melt away. Through the opening, the bear knight drove his long knife into the face of the warrior in front of him and the boar squealed as he died. Charging forward, the opposing line of boars broke before the bears and the knight dropped his knife as he drew Galatine from its scabbard.

Poets sing of battle, but few have ever been in a shield wall or even the chaotic epicenter of a battle. Those bards would later sing of Gawain, with his mystical blade Galatine, as he valiantly struck down hundreds of the enemy that day. The truth is that he did kill that many and was a bloody affair, but in the end, the boars broke and began to flee.

"Hold ranks!" Mordred screamed out. His shield had been cracked and there was a rent in his chain mail from an ax blow, his sword was bloody and notched from the battle. "Hold your ranks!"

"So you won!" a voice called out from across the field and Gawain looked over to see Heretoga leaning heavily upon a broken spear. The boar's right arm hung limply by his side, it was quite clear to the knight that the chieftain's collarbone and arm were both broken. "Come on and finished the job!"

The chieftain grunted when Togdumnus slammed his paw into his back sending him sprawling into the blood soak and heavily trampled grass. The handle end of the large ax came down hard to knock the boar unconscious. The large bear looked over at the knight and shrugged his shoulders, "I like him!"

"Sweet gods!" someone cried out from the top of the ridge and both Gawain and Togdumnus turned to see Sir Sagramor standing upon a ridge and looking north. "There are more of them!"

Gawain looked around the field before them, there were thousands upon thousands of boars between them and the mountain, where he saw Arthur's golden dragon banner flying from the summit. Even worse, charging towards them were several thousand wildlings. He glanced towards the standing stones upon the small mound before them and gave out a sigh.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted!" Togdumnus actually chuckled as he shouldered his large ax. "I hope the bards sing about how many more of these arseholes I killed then you did!"

"Withdraw!" the knight yelled as he shook his head at the larger bear's attempted humor. "To the standing stones and form a shield wall. We will hold them there!"

"Grab all our wounded!" Mordred quickly added. "We make our stand at the stone ring!"

The survivors had barely formed ranks when the first of the wild clanmammals threw themselves against their shields. Spears and arrows fell among their ranks, but the line held as the first wave finally stumbled back. The ground was littered with their dead, but the wild highlanders now knew they couldn't overwhelm the bears.

Mordred stood panting in the center of the mound, there was blood oozing down his arm from a wound as he gingerly pulled an arrow from his shoulder. "They almost got me that time," he grimly said.

"You know we are standing upon a burial mound?" Togdumnus said to Sir Sagramor. "This is where they buried the dead tribesmammals who were killed by your kind."

"My kind?" the knight asked.

"You Legionaries slaughtered them and then dumped their bodies into the mass grave which lies below our paws. I wonder which side they are cheering for today?"

"Here they come again!" Gawain yelled. "Hold the line!" His shield was cracked as a large half-naked elk brought his ax down upon the already damaged wood. The knight stabbed forward and drove Galatine into the large beast's unarmored stomach, blood ran down his paw as he yanked the blade upwards and free. As that warrior fell, another stepped into his place. This time it was a wild-looking bear who swung a large sword down hard at the knight, but the blade was stopped by Togdumnus's ax and Gawain cut downward with his own blade to sever the bear's leg at his knee. A spear was driven into his side, but the knight's chain mail held and stopped the wounding strike. Desperately he lopped the blade from the top of the spear and slashed down at the wolf who held the remains of the haft, the white lime painted gray-furred warrior yipped in pain as the blade struck him across his chest.

From on top of Mons Badon, Arthur and the others watched the desperate battle below. "They are doomed!" Sir Cai sighed. "We can't save them."

"If we charge down to relieve them, we too will be overwhelmed," Sir Bors snorted out.

"This must be the end of days if a bull cautions us not to charge into our foes!" the Wolf King dryly commented. "Still we have to do something! I'd rather die among my enemies then starve upon his hill."

"Drums!" Sir Tristian called out from below them. "I hear drums and horns!" the reddish furred knight yelled as he pointed towards the distant tree line.

"Gods preserve us!" Cai groaned as he saw a tight line of rams marching towards the field of battle. "Aldroen has arrived."

"No look at the banner!" Sir Lionel excitedly yelled. "They are flying a copy of Arthur's banner!"

Below them at the foot of the mountain, Esa smiled over at Cedrick. "Aldroen is here, now there is nothing Arthur and his warriors can do but die," he laughed to the other boar. His grin quickly faded when he saw the rows of ram soldiers stop before they launched a rain their lead weighed darts into the ranks of the confused clansmamals. Hundreds of the deadly projectiles called plumbatas were thrown into the milling wildings, killing and wounding many, and shattering their already loose ranks. There was a sudden shout when from behind the rams, hundreds of bulls charged forward, scattering the highlanders and sending them fleeing.

Sir Erec with Aldroen's "missing" reinforced cohort of ram soldiers and goats had arrived and among them was the welcomed news that the so-called Caesar's hope for a civil war between Lot's sons had ended. A new Bull King had been elected and he had come to answer Arthur's summons.

The bulls in the field below Mons Badon were not the only bovines who were tired of waiting and it was not even noon.

* * *

**By the end of the Roman Empire, a type of heavy cavalry called the Equites cataphractarii was introduced onto the battlefield. The heavily armored soldiers, mounted on their equally armored warhorses were inspired by the cataphracts of Parthia. They were the mounted shock troops, like the tanks of the modern century, who were effective in breaking formations of infantry. The modern knights, in their shiny plate armor, were the more modern successors to the cataphractarii.**

**A plumbata was a small fletched dart with a barbed iron point on a weighted lead ball and a wooden shaft. It would get caught in a wooden shield and weight it down, with the barbed head and softer leaded upper shaft making it difficult to remove. A 5th Century Roman soldier carried five in their shield. **


	47. Cad Mynydd Baddon

**Chapter 47: Cad Mynydd Baddon**

* * *

**_"Also Arthur himself, having put on a coat of mail suitable to the grandeur of so powerful a king, placed a golden helmet upon his head, on which was engraven the figure of a dragon; and on his shoulders his shield called Priwen; upon which the picture of the blessed Mary, mother of God, was painted, in order to put him frequently in mind of her. Then girding on his Caliburn, which was an excellent sword made in the isle of Avallon, he graced his right hand with his lance, named Ron, which was hard, broad, and fit for slaughter. After this, having placed his men in order, he boldly attacked the Saxons, who were drawn out in the shape of a wedge, as their manner was."_**

CHAP. IV BOOK VIII. The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth

**The great battle takes place, but not as the bards will later sing about it in their tales. **

* * *

**Near Future **

"I love you like you are my own son Ricky, but those kippers stink!" the fennec fox in the black bowling shirt commented as he fondly watched the rabbit-eared looking fox shovel another fork full of the salted cold-smoked herring into his mouth. "If I ate that much salt, it would give me a coronary!"

"Well that is something which I don't have to worry about, now do I?" hybrid chuckled as he gave the small fox his best smirk. "As for you my dear godfather, you still have many more years to annoy me."

"You were a muddy mess earlier, what happened?"

"I had to dig up a hoard of gold coins to give to the Professor, so he could bribe some church bishop."

"Oh yeah, which one?"

"A long-dead one and not anyone still alive!" Ricky laughed between bites of fish and eggs.

"So, then why the payoff?"

"That damn crossbow I showed Arthur when he was a cub, I kind of changed history a little."

"You did, I hadn't noticed?" Finn said as he sipped his coffee and leaned back to watch his godson shovel yet another fork of fish into his mouth. He looked around at the kitchen staff, who were mostly coyotes and foxes, and all related to Rick's tribe through his marriage to Nockotia. The sight of the time traveler was nothing unusual for any of them since most had grown up knowing him as Waah-i-ald for all their lives. "So are you going to tell me what you screwed up this time?"

"Try picturing Robin Hood with a crossbow instead of his famous longbow?"

"So what, he'd still be Robin Hood right?"

"Crossbows take longer to reload, so let's just say he'd lose his head to the Sheriff of Nottingham before he was ready for another shot."

"But I remember the Robin Hood stories," Finn pondered for a moment and then he laughed. "Only because you two have fixed history."

"The professor had to buy off a bishop to declare that crossbows were immoral and outlaw them. With no more crossbows, everyone goes back to the longbow." Ricky answered with a grin as he made a gesture of shooting with a bow. "Twang!"

"Immoral?"

"The bishop got the Pope to outlaw the crossbow with the punishment of excommunication and damnation of the soul for using one."

"But weren't they still used in the middle ages?"

"Against those the Church called non-believers, heretics, and heathens like you," Ricky answered before he took a sip of coffee. "But against the good and holy, not to mention rich, nobles of the time in their bright and shiny plate armor, it was outlawed. You certainly can't have a mere peasant from the fields kill a wealthy knight with one of those things, a trained archer is another matter."

"I'll take your word for it."

Ricky grew silent again as he pushed his fish around on his plate. "What else," Finn softly asked.

"I went to try to free mom again," Ricky answered as his ears drooped flat against his back. "I just figured that I'm now more powerful then I was when I was sixteen and maybe now I could free her from time."

"It didn't work, did it?"

"No, I almost got caught in-between time again, that black void of nowhere and no place. I could see her stuck there, but I couldn't move her into either the past or the future. She just lays there not breathing or anything, only silently still as if she were cast from wax. I barely escaped myself from being caught with her, so much for being a god!"

"You tried, but please don't try it again," Finn sighed.

"You know I've done some really dumb things in my life…"

"Like being angry with Nicky and Maria for not telling you the whole truth about your mother until you were older," Finn quickly interjected. Gods he wanted a cigarette, he hadn't smoked for a least a dozen years, but now he was dying for one again. It must be the stress of worrying about Ricky which caused the cravings to return. "At least Nockotia kept you from running away into time."

"She made me stay and I wasn't going to leave her behind."

"You could have left her and been gone for years, she would have never known."

"She'd know…she always seemed to know." Ricky sighed as he shook his head. "She knew me better than I knew myself."

"Vixens seem to know everything about us!" Finn chuckled as he picked up his coffee cup and waved to the kitchen staff to bring a refill.

"I once tried to visit her in the past, when the younger me was gone. At our first kiss, she knew and told me that she loved me too much to do anything more that would upset me later."

"She wouldn't even cheat on you, even if it was with you!" Finn laughed. "You tried cheating on yourself, now that's a new one!"

"Have I ever told you I have a screwed up life?" Ricky chuckled as he watched the fox refill his coffee cup. "She never even told me that I had tried to do it either and I never tried again."

"She was special."

"Now Natasha on the other paw!" the hybrid added as he gave his godfather another smirk, one which almost matched his father's.

"Don't go there Ricky," Finn quickly laughed. "I don't want to hear any more about your sorted sex life."

* * *

**489**

There were fluffy looking clouds in the early morning sky, white puffs against the stark blue sky above. From between the clouds, the sun shone brightly down upon the chaos below as mammal struggled against mammal, and death ruled the morning. Bodies were scattered among the green grass in the valley at the foot of the small mountain and while most were boars and wildings, many were also bears, war stallions, and their allies who fell in the raging battle which was still taking place. Merlin handed Nick a chunk of crusty bread as he passed by the still tired fox and stood next to the large handsome bear in glittering scale mail.

Arthur felt the stirring of faint hope while he watched the mighty bulls scatter the wild clansmammals and send them running back towards the lines of boars, who were trying to reorganize their shield wall to face not only the Bear King's army but also the disciplined line of rams and the rampaging bulls which were now advancing upon them. "Our chance is now, while they are confused!" he called out to his commanders. "Form ranks and we will head down, once we get onto flat ground, form a shield wall and then we strike."

"There are still too many of them," King Guethelin began to object as the priestly hart began to string his longbow.

"What the hell?" Arthur heard King Maelgwn exclaim as the wolf grabbed the bear's arm.

Arthur turned to see what upset the Wolf King and saw that the hundred or so Tatánka had lost their patience and were now charging down the slope at the boars. Several of the bison had picked up shields or hung captured chain mail over their heads as they stampeded down the steep incline and towards the hastily forming shield wall below.

"What do we do Arthur?" Sir Cai yelled. The older bear had pulled on his iron war helmet and drawn his sword.

"Follow them!" Arthur answered as he drew his own sword and picked up a shield. The warlord then ran down the trail towards the awaiting boars.

The bards would tell of Arthur's great speech to his warriors, all about being the Children of the North and about fighting for their freedom. They will sing of how he inspired them to do feats worthy of the legendary warriors of old, but it didn't happen that way. Instead, it was a wild charge down the mountainside, only to slam into the mass of boars who were waiting. It should have been a slaughter, but instead, it was a glorious victory and sadly no one would remember that it was the outlanders called the Tatánka who led the way.

The sight of the strange wild hairy looking Tatánka struck fear into the hearts of the enemy as they shattered and stomped through the shield wall of boars. Many of the valiant bison fell to the warrior's spears and axes, but still, their own losses did not stop the remainder of the wild bovines as they stabbed back with their own flint tipped spears. One of the bison had seized a pair of bull sized heavy sledgehammers from the smithy, which he used to slam down upon the smaller boars. Another brave hairy warrior seemingly ignored the spears which had impaled him as he picked up one of the sea ravagers and threw him into the broken shield wall.

Sir Bors and Sir Lionel were both with them in the middle of the fighting and the two large powerful bull brothers swung their swords with vigor as they cursed. Aideen had followed her brother into battle, her silvery winged helmet made her look like a red-furred Valkyrie as she stabbed with her spear from behind the other warriors. Galahad surprised everyone because he had ridden on Sir Lionel's shoulder down the mountainside and then gripping his spear, he gave a mighty snarl as he leaped into the air only to drive his weapon into the chest of a much larger boar, the iron tip cut through the warrior's chain mail before the haft shattered. Rolling, the wild fox picked up the slain boar's much longer and heavier discarded spear and seemingly twirled around as if he was dancing while he stabbed and cut with the blade.

Arthur was among the boars too, in his right paw he used his mighty sword Caliburn to slash into his foes, even as he blocked their blows with the shield in his left paw. He had randomly picked up the shield, it was King Guethelin's, and had both the Great Lion and the Meek Lamb painted upon it. Boar after boar fell to his mighty blade as he battled his way into their midst.

The bears, wolves, deer, foxes, and all their other allies were among the ranks of the boars. It was a confusing melee of sword, ax, and spear welding warriors, the shield wall had been breached by the Tatánka and now it was just brutal warrior against warrior vicious fighting.

"Keep the shield wall tight", Sir Ennis screamed out while the rams beat on their rectangular shields with their short swords while they began to march toward the now disorganized ranks of boars. The bulls had overlapped their shield together too as they advanced next to the soldiers.

"Form a shield wall!" Gawain yelled to the survivors of the Bear King's army. "Push into them and shove them back!" The boar's own hastily reorganized shield wall held them momentarily at bay until a volley of arrows rained down upon the invader's unprotected backs from King Guethelin and his red deer war monk's powerful longbows. Side by side, Gawain and Sir Sagamore broke the line, the small farmer turned warrior de Hopps was just behind them. The bear knight's deadly blade Galatine slew many of their foes and the larger heavy armored stallion lashed out with his own blade and his mace with deadly intent. The rabbit de Hopps swung his wood ax, chopping at his foe's legs and knees, and together the trio left a blood-soaked trail of dead and dying boar, along with a few wild highlanders, behind them.

Cedrick found himself facing a tall muscular wolf in chain mail, the boar squealed out his war cry as he charged the gray-furred knight. The wolf knight was Sir Owain and he blocked the boar's blade with his shield, then the wolf twirled past him before he swiftly turned and drove his own sword into the boar's back. The knight quickly pulled his blade free from the now dying warrior and then brought it hacking down into Cedrick's neck, severing the boar's head from his shoulders.

Arthur reeled back as a large wild looking bull smashed a huge two-bladed ax into his shield, splintering it. The bull grinned as he raised his ax to bring it down upon the bear, only to gape at the two shafts of arrows which seemed to have suddenly appeared sticking out of his chest. As the wilder fell dead, Arthur looked back to see Merida was already notching another arrow into her bowstring.

Wild'e tossed aside his crossbow as the fox in the green tunic leaned over to draw a dead boar's long knife. Welding the blade with both paws, he cut down into another boar's leg, which sent his foe stumbling to his knees. Before the boar realized the danger he was in, Sir Tristan's spear found his throat and cut it open. Together the two foxes charged at more of their enemies.

Mordred was down, his shield splintered and his blade broken. The downward swing of the boar's deadly sword was blocked by a rectangular shield, even as Sir Ennis stabbed with his short sword into the assailant's belly. Togodumnus quickly grabbed the Bear King and pulled him to safety behind the ram army's wall of shields and swords.

Esa picked up a discarded war ax and hefting it with all his might, he swung it into the exposed back of a large bull. The blade sliced through the chain mail armor and stuck between the bull's muscular shoulders. Before he could free the blade, a large bison charged into him, driving one of his horns into the boar's chest and then with a flick of his large head, the smaller warrior was tossed high into the air. With a grunt, Esa hit the ground and rolled over only to see another large bull standing over him. Sir Bors brought his sword down, driving the blade though not only Esa's chain mail but also the body of his brother's killer and into the ground below.

Deadly lead balls whistled into the ranks of boars with the velocity of bullets. Tambo and the other impala scouts whirled their slings again before they unleashed another volley. They stood next to a fallen black-furred war stallion in his heavy scale mail armor, the steed was cursing in his native tongue while holding his broken leg.

From atop the mountain, Bleddyn helplessly watched the battle below. His injuries had kept him from participating in the battle, instead, he watched the desperate fighting and he knew that if Arthur and his warriors did not win, then their lives would be forfeit too. He glanced over at another fox standing next to Merlin and wondered why the wizards had not joined in on the battle. A young fox tod joined him and the twelve-year-old watched with wide eyes the swirling battle below them. "Look there is Sir Owen!" Percival excitedly cried out as he pointed at the wolf knight. The knight was standing almost shoulder to shoulder with King Maelgwn as they traded blows with several boars. Suddenly those boars retreated in a panic, leaving two of their own slain before the knight and the Wolf King.

At the sight of their enemy fleeing, King Maegwn lifted his muzzle and howled out the House of Blaidd's war cry and he was quickly joined by Sir Owen and many of the other wolves on the battlefield. Bleddyn chucked when Percival enthusiastically joined the howling with his very young fox sounding yowl. "You best join the other pages and retainers by the kegs, your master will be thirsty from battle and he will want a jug of wine or mead to quench his thirst," he advised his young cousin. "Make haste for the battle will soon be over."

The older fox laughed as he watched Percival sprint away towards the camp. Before he began to limp back towards the other wounded foxes, Bleddyn stopped and glanced one more time down the mountainside where he saw King Guethelin kneeling next to a dying boar warrior. The stately red deer in the black robe had reached for a discarded sword, which he then gently placed in the dying warrior hoofs as the priestly king prayed for the soul next to him. Even in the horrors of war, there seemed to be room for a little mercy in some mammal's hearts. Briefly, Bleddyn recalled the words of the stranger he had met on the mountainside near the old bridge the day before and that the strange long-eared fox had told the sea wolf on the ledge that he deserved no mercy before he kicked him down the mountain to his death. "Gods, was all this suffering worth it?" he softly asked no one as he looked upwards towards the sky, and then he continued limping towards the others.

The boars and their wild allies finally broke and those who did not kneel crying out for mercy had begun to flee the field, with the wolves and surviving foxes in pursuit. The battle had moved from the foot of Mons Badon to the mountains and woods surrounding it and many more on both sides would die before the day was over.

The survivor's panted in the midday heat, what had seemed like days of killing and fighting had only been just a little over an hour. Around them were the bodies of the dead and the dying, the cries of the wounded filled the air. The bards would often sing of the joy of battle, but there was no great joy that day, for the battle was hard-fought and many a friend had perished. Victory in battle always comes at a great price.

Exhausted, Arthur embraced his best friend Sir Gawain as the two of them sat down to rest upon a rock. The kings and other knights gathered around them. Nick followed Merlin down the hillside, for the wizard had kept him from the field of battle.

"See to the wounded and then make sure everyone gets something to eat and drink," Arthur commanded. "We will all still need our strength, for this is far from over."

"Alderon is still out there," King Mordred added. "With his army of rams and goats."

"What of the prisoners?" King Guethelin quickly asked. "Surely we are not going to slay them, for the Holy Lamb says mercy must be shown to all, even thy enemies."

"No, keep them safe for now and see that they too are fed. I will go speak to them later on today," Arthur answered. "But for now, everyone please go see to your warriors." With a sigh he stood up and slowly walked towards where Sir Bors was sitting next to his brother's body, the battle had been costly for both sides.

The famous Battle of Badon had ended and the threat of the boars, along with their allies, had also ended…for now**. **

* * *

**The Battle of Badon, in which Arthur carried the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ for three days and three nights upon his shoulders (shield) and the Britons were the victors" - **_**Annales Cambriae.**_

**Pope Urban II really did ban the use of crossbows against fellow Christians in 1096. The crossbow was relatively easy to train someone to use and the powerful bolts could penetrate chain and plate armor at distances of up to 300 yards, remember usually only the rich aristocrats could afford plate armor. The longbow was faster and just at deadly, as proven by the English at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, but it took years of practice to become both proficient and strong enough to effectively handle the powerful draw required to use the bow. Extensive use of the longbow also caused physical damage to the archer's body. Skeletons of longbowmen have been unearthed showing damage to the shoulder blades, elbows, and wrists caused by the continuous strain of drawing back hundreds of pounds of draw every day. **


	48. Fall of the House of Defaid

**Chapter 48: Fall of the House of Defaid**

* * *

"_**What a mess! What a medieval muddle! We'll have to modernize it!"**_

Merlin in the movie _Sword in the Stone_

**A god watches from the darkness between time and reality while in the past, Aldroen is betrayed. **

* * *

**Far Distant Future**

He embraced the darkness of nothing, the empty space between time and reality, as he stared at his mother trapped there. The fox and rabbit hybrid, who now only called himself Aion, had watched himself centuries earlier as he was trapped in this very void for almost twenty years trying to free his mother from her bondage between time. With some interest, he also watched himself as he streaked like a white meteor through the past and the future, sometimes as a young teenager playing with his newly found power as if it was a toy, and later as a self-proclaimed crusader fighting to balance and control that which cannot be controlled. A lesser white streak marked the passage of the Professor or Project Chronos's time-traveling drone, also rushing through time itself. A few faint white streaks marked the path his parents had accidentally taken when they were pulled into the past by one of the watches. As the god of time, he could see all of time from where he watched.

He drifted towards one particular time jump and floated while the sixteen-year-old version of himself slowly went by with Nockotia in his arms. Reaching out his paw, he lightly brushed her cheek while they jumped past him. With a longing heart, he watched the couple as they achieved their goal and he gave a thin smile while he watched himself passionately kiss her while they stood on the banks of the blue pool of water. There was cheering as the villagers ran towards them, celebrating their return to the past and he fondly watched as a fox father hugged his vixen daughter.

He observed from just outside the void, their first wedding before the village elders. Nockotia was dressed in the ceremonial red-feathered cloak as she stood with him before the chief. They both drank the special potion in hopes that it would make each other fertile enough for his new wife to conceive, but despite their sweet efforts in the hut that night, she did not. They were sixteen, married, and in love, how wonderful life was during those days. When they returned back to the future and told Marie and Nicky that they were now married, the vixen and tod were not quite as excited. He received a lecture on how they were too young at that age for such a commitment, something Nockotia did not understand because she was older than some in her village who had taken mates. They also sent for the village priest to remarry them again and do it "proper" as the priest called the ceremony. That night they set a tent up in a meadow overlooking the blue sea and that next day in the tent was always his fondest memory.

Breaking contact before the stomach-churning pain set in, which he would get if he tried to jump to a point in time where he already was, he pulled back into the void. He had once believed that he could not be in the same place at the same time and that was true when he was younger and weaker, but he was vastly stronger now. Slowly he floated towards his mother, she was still trapped there and despite his now near phenomenal powers, he still could not free her from her prison. He reached and touched the side of her face before leaning over and putting his head upon her chest, trying to comfort the guilt he had felt after all these centuries upon centuries. It was his birth that had left her trapped there, his punishment for being born. Surprisingly he found himself sobbing again for what he had lost, all those he had loved who sooner or later perished, and for the longing of being held in the arms of the rabbit doe who he now clung to tightly in the dark void.

Who really wants to live forever?

* * *

**489**

There was a young tup's scream, which sent several of the soldiers running through the camp to see what was going on, only to find Vitus pulling a ten-year-old ram out of a tent. "You scratched the paint on my shield!" he angrily snapped at the retainer as the poor boy tried to protect himself from the large ram's blows. "You're a nothing but a fool and should be grateful that I don't have you expelled from this camp!"

"Leave my son alone!" the lamb's mother screamed as she ran forward trying to grab and protect her son. Vitus shoved her away with a snarl and returned to beating the boy. Reaching over, the ewe frantically seized and threw a nearby pot of hot water at Vitus. The large muscular ram quickly turned and brought his fist down into her muzzle, sending her sprawling into the mud.

"Grab her!" he commanded several nearby soldiers. "Take her to the post and strip her!"

The soldiers didn't move at first, several even gave an angry baahing at the order. A nearby centurion gave a heavy sigh as he barked out, "You heard your orders!" The ewe was crying as they gently dragged her towards the post and stripped her naked. The centurion then tied her hoofs together and through the look attached to the post.

"Flog her!" Vitus yelled. "Ten lashes and make them count! I want to see her bleed!"

The centurion drew his whip and cracked it into the ewe's back, she screamed in pain, but the ram had pulled the blow. "Give me that!" Vitus snarled as he grabbed the whip from the other ram. Snapping it forward, it cracked against her back and she screamed yet again, causing the muscular ram to grin.

After blow after blow snapped into the ewe, she stopped screaming, and slumped loosely, only to be held up by the ropes which bound her to the pole.

"That is enough!" a voice called out in anger. "You're killing her!"

"So what?" Vitus laughed as he brought the whip back for another strike. "She is nothing, just a whore."

"She doesn't deserve to die like this!" Constantine yelled back and before the larger ram could strike again, he grabbed the whip's bloody end with his hoof.

"Fine!" the bully yelled as he pulled the whip free of the younger ram's hold. "Maybe you can take the rest of her punishment!" He brought the whip around and snapped it across Constantine's chest.

There was a gasp from those watching as the younger ram, reached down and touched the bloody welt across his chest. Then with a yell, Constantine lowered his head and charged into the larger ram. With a grin Vitus grabbed the charging ram's horns and pulled them downward with a grunt even as he brought his knee up into Constantine's chin. Even as he fell stunned at the blow, the younger ram kicked out with his hoof into the older ram's knee cap. With a scream of pain, Vitus grabbed his knee as he too fell into the mud.

Reached over, Constantine grasped the stronger ram by the horns and drove his face into the mud. He pulled his own body over the back of the Vitus, pinning him in the goo, and as he tried to keep the ram from pushing up while he struggled to pull his muzzle out of that watery brown muck. Constantine pushed harder and harder, forcing Vitus's face deeper into the mud, but with a grunt, the stronger mud-covered ram shrugged him off and unsteadily knelt facing him, as he drew his knife.

Constantine rolled back and away, just as the long knife slashed at him. Fumbling for his own blade, he began to draw his weapon when suddenly his arms were seized by two strong soldiers in purple tunics. "Enough!" someone bellowed and a centurion stepped between the two battling rams. "The Caesar commands you both to clean up and report to him at his tent! He is sorely displeased with the two of you brawling in the mud like a common soldier."

It took Constantine over half an hour to wash the mud out of his wool in a nearby stream and pulling on a new blue tunic, he buckled his sword belt back around his waist and then threw a blood-red cloak over his shoulders. He looked every bit a young noble ram, someone important. Soldiers of Caesar's new imperial guards in their purple cloaks escorted him towards the large canvas pavilion tent in the center of the camp. Several off duty officers and soldiers watched as he was paraded by their tents towards his judgment, from the corner of his eye he noticed several had their mail coats on and their swords around their waist.

The imperial guard was organized for Aldroen by Vitus and was composed of the dregs of society, those too cruel or violent to be allowed to become regular soldiers. Some were former brigands and even murderers who were recruited for their use of their blades. They were not the kind of rams one wanted to "get on the wrong side of", as the saying goes.

Aldroen sat on his wooden folding camp chair and awaited them. He was dressed in a pure white toga over his tunic which had an imperial purple stripe and he held a wooden staff with gold gilded upon it. Flanking him were two of his new guardsmammals and Vitus was also already there, dressed in an undyed tunic with a simple blue cloak. "You two idiots!" the self-proclaimed Caesar shouted at them both as they stood on opposite sides of the tent. "I cannot have two of my officers brawling like commoners in front of the soldiers like that!"

"He is a commoner," Constantine softly objected. The look his uncle gave him made him shut up.

Vitus, however, snarled back at Aldroen, "that damned ewe of a nephew of yours undermined my authority!"

"Constantine is of my blood!" Aldroen snapped back. "He is of noble blood, unlike you who serve at my pleasure."

"I only serve you because I want to!" Vitus began to sarcastically laugh. "As for your nephew, how long do you think your empire will survive in his soft tiny hoofs? I should be your heir, not him! You are a fool to believe he will live more than an hour after your death."

Constantine stared at the large ram in surprise, he couldn't believe that Vitus had just threatened him before his uncle? He expected that the guards would move to protect his uncle, but neither moved.

"You dare threaten my nephew?" Aldroen baahed out.

"You are a bigger idiot then I thought," Vitus replied as he seemed to be picking lint off his tunic. "Who do you think really commands your guards? I'm tired of all of this stupid scheming of yours and from now on you will do as I tell you."

"Don't you dare speak to me in that tone!" Aldroen screamed as he stood up in his anger. "No speaks to Caesar like that!"

"Caesar…Caesar!" the brutal ram laughed back at the ram in the toga. "You dare call yourself a Caesar? You're just a backwater king and you're not anything like the legendary Caesars of old! You are just a stupid fool playing to be more than you will ever be, trying to bring back the long-gone past!."

"How dare you!" Aldroen dashed forward and slapped his hoof across Vitus's muzzle. "Guards seize him!"

The purple cloaked guards did not move but watched as Vitus yanked the rod from Aldroen's hoof and brought the stout wood down upon the ram's forehead. With a yell of pain, the so-called Caesar fell to the ground holding his bloody wound.

"How dare…" Aldroen began to scream again, but Vitus had thrown aside the rod as he drew his sword. The blade had cut into the fallen ram's stomach, who gave out a groan as it was brutally twisted. With an evil grin, Vitus plucked the crown from the dying ram's head and placed it upon his own. "The old Caesar is dead!" he called out to the guards. "Long live the new Caesar!"

Constantine used the confusion to draw his own sword, which he brought up and stabbed the imperial guard who held his arm. Shoving the dying guard into another, he slashed through the canvas tent wall and stumbled towards the soldiers and officers who had gathered outside. "Treason! Vitus has killed Aldroen!" he yelled as he rushed towards them. The common soldiers were being kept back by a line of the guards, but at the sight of Constantine, they drew their own swords and rushed forward. Most of the soldiers were unarmored and without their shields, they fell to the blades and spears of the mail-clad guards. Rough hoofs gripped his arms and he was shoved behind a group of soldiers who stood protecting him from the advancing guards.

Rams turned against rams, it seemed that the guards were not the only troops Vitus had bribed or convinced to join him. Blade struck blade as the battle swirled into the camp and among the tents. Just when all hope seemed crushed, there were the sounds of beating drums as a fully equipped cohort of soldiers marched towards the fighting with their shields overlapped. Several of the loyal knights and centurions had expected the guards and their allies to betray the House of Defaid and had prepared. The guards tried to form their own shield wall, but the disciplined soldiers came on too fast for them to organize themselves. Shield met blade and spears were thrust out drawing blood, soon the guards panicked and tried to run. They didn't make it very far as they were quickly either slain or subdued, the rebellion was crushed.

Vitus was surrounded by a ring of soldiers with their shields at ready and their spears leveled. The muscular ram cursed them, screaming that he was the rightful Caesar and they should follow him to greatness. That he would lead them to pillage and plunder the north before they marched southward to raid the riches of Londonrium. Silently the ring drew closer and he wildly swung his short sword as he cursed them. Finally, he was silenced as a dozen or so spears entered his body and when the soldiers withdrew, his blood-soaked body was lying crumpled in the mud.

They laid Aldroen on his sleeping couch and covered his body with the purple robe. "Our Caesar is dead!" one of the knights proclaimed as he drew his sword and faced Constantine, bringing his blade towards his heart, the officer thumped his fist against his mail-clad chest. "Long live Caesar!"

The soldiers all mimicked their leader, chanting, "Long live Caesar!"

Constantine raised his hoofs to the sky and called out for them to quiet. "I am not worthy to lead such warriors!" he proclaimed as he shook his head. "We should pick one of these fine officers to lead us."

"No!" came cries from the ranks. "Long live Caesar Constantine!"

Raising his hoof again, he tried to silence their chant. Finally, they quieted enough for him to speak again. "The time of the Caesars is long past, we cannot relive those days. We are Children of the North and, like my ancestors, I will be your king and be sworn to the welfare and safety of those in the House of Defaid. Now prepare to break camp for we march south, not to conquer others, but to honor our sacred pledge to come to the aid of the Seven Houses when called. No more will we give our children as hostages to the sea boars, it is time that they learn what this army can do in battle!"

There was cheering from the ranks as the officers began to command them to pack and prepare to march.

"What do we do with the prisoners?" a senior centurion asked.

"Bind them, for they shall stand trial before a military jury for their crimes."

He held a council of the remaining loyal senior officers and it was decided that they would leave one reinforced cohort behind to protect the wall, the remainder of the army marched southward towards where they knew the sea boars were battling Arthur and his warriors. Fast goats were sent out with messages that the House of Defaid had a new king and they were marching to the aid of the others.


	49. Blood & Mercy

**Chapter 49: Blood & Mercy**

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**_And Arthur and his knighthood for a space  
Were all one will, and through that strength the King  
Drew in the petty princedoms under him,  
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame  
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned._**

_Idylls of the King_; The Coming of Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

**Nockotia returns to her home with Ricky. Arthur and his army deal with the aftermath of the great battle. **

* * *

**Sixteen Years into the Future**

Nockotia slapped Ricky's paw as he tried to grope her and then she giggled while seemingly dancing away from his grasp and across the barn floor. "Aw come on baby!" the teenage tod buck called out as he chased her.

"No, not until we have had our mating ceremony!" she giggled as he stood there in obvious frustration. "Didn't you once tell my father that you would not be one of those gods who took advantage of a female and then leave her bearing a child?"

"Your tribe calls me a god? So as a god, I could command you to do as I say," he teased her back.

"You are not a god and do you want me just for your lust or do you love me?"

"You know I love you."

"Then I want a proper ceremony with the red-feathered cloak, just like your mother wore."

"How would I know what she wore that day?" he teased her again as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his arms. "I wasn't there."

His kiss was deep and passionate until finally she softly pushed herself free of his arms as they both panted. "My dear Waah-i-ald, I wouldn't put it past you to have been there. You did show up in our village not long afterward."

"You know you can call me Ricky or Richard," he laughed. "I was just finding somewhere safe to rest, someplace without homework! Aunt Maria is a stickler for the studies. Besides, your village was a place where I could be treated as an adult and I really didn't think everyone would treat me like a god."

"Rick? Ricky? Nope, you will always be my Waah-i-ald! As for being treated as a god, that will be your own fault because you are going to go back into the past and lead my…our tribe…to the holy spot near the pool. Now you have told me that you have seen sixteen winters, so why are you not considered an adult here? Surely, you are at the age to find a mate and start a family?"

"I think I found my mate!" he laughed as he pounced at her again. She knew he was quick and able to hoop long distances, so she twisted and twirled herself away with a giggle. "That is if I can catch her!"

"Are you so sure that I want you to be my mate?" Nockotia now teased him with a grin. "You are half rabbit and after what Jason told me about rabbits, I'm not sure I'm up to that kind of …ah, vigor."

"Ha!" he laughed back. "You've seen me naked in the surf working the nets and you know that I'm more fox than a rabbit." The vixen actually blushed when he said that.

"Let us do it!" he called out with a determined voice. "Let's go back to your village and get married, I mean mated!"

"Right now? Don't you need to tell Aunt Maria and Uncle Nicky we are leaving?"

"Nope, we can go right now and we'll get back before they even know it!" He didn't wait for her answer as he pulled her into his embrace and time jumped.

In the split second between times, Nockotia could swear someone touched her cheek. She quickly forgot about that touch when she felt the familiar moss under her feet and he kissed her again. There were joyful shouts from nearby and she turned to see her family and fellow villagers running towards them. She happily grinned as her father hugged her.

For a moment Ricky looked around as if he thought someone was watching them and then shook his head with a chuckle. What other time travelers were there besides himself, the Professor, and that clunky Probe? He knew his father Nick could not time travel without his mother Judy, who was trapped in time, and little did he know that it was his future self who was watching.

* * *

**489**

Several of the lesser sea boar chieftains tried to gather together what remained of their shattered forces, attempting to reorganize themselves back into some semblance of a combat force. They had decided that if they couldn't conquer the land, they could at least raid and despoil it before they left. Several thousand of the raiders had gathered when word came from some wildings that their way back over the wall was now closed off to them by a mixed force of rams and bulls. Even worse, was that they had tangled with the advance guard of the Ram King's army as it marched southward and now they were trapped. Desperately they fled to the northwest, towards the sea.

This was the kind of fight that the dashing young wolf was seeking and even though they might be outnumbered, he knew that will make the bard's songs about their victory even sweeter. Aengus, son of Nadfraech, and his fianna of warriors had hidden in the woods that flanked the valley trail and watched with growing anticipation while the sea boars began to steam by, there were still well over a thousand of them and the wolf from the Green Isle grinned as he drew his sword. Howling their battle cry "_Dord Fiann_as", they charged with spears and swords slashing, the wolves hacked their way into the disorganized and disillusioned boars. It was more than the remaining sea raiders could take and in a panic, they fled piecemeal towards the north only to find that way was now blocked by the advancing rams and goats. Few survived to finally find safe passage over the wall and back into the wilds of the highlands.

Upon the mountain top, Arthur gathered with the kings and knights as they discussed their next move. Their army was still intact, but their losses had been heavy and about a third of Arthur's forces were either dead or wounded and well over half of Mordred's army too. Aldroen has almost doubled the number of soldiers in the field and they are well-rested," Sir Ennis reported. The grizzled ram absentmindedly rubbed one of his horns. "I managed to turn his garrisons against him back in the kingdom, but I left them to protect the land from raiders. "

"Can we find a place where we can meet them in a battle where they can't bring their full force upon us at once?" the Wolf King asked. "Are there any small valleys around here where our flanks will be protected?"

"There are some to the northwest of here," Sir Owen answered. "But I think Alderon is smart enough to outflank us, instead of fighting in such a battlefield."

"What about a night attack?" Sir Cai offered. "Hit them just before dawn."

"We can split our forces into two," Arthur suddenly said. "Half the army can draw him into a valley where the remainder of our warriors can ambush their flanks."

"As we did at the forest of Celidon," Sir Gawain added. "Those raiders didn't know what hit them until it was too late."

"There were only about a thousand of them that day and you had over six hundred warriors," Mordred quickly pointed out. "Our current army has maybe just over a couple thousand still…"

"Milords?" a voice called out from nearby and Arthur and the kings looked to see that several foxes were standing there with a weasel.

"Henry, what are you doing here?" Sir Cai suddenly asked. "I told you to keep an eye on…" he hesitated when he realized that he had ordered the weasel to spy on Mordred, who was now their king. "Ah, yes your majesty, this is Henry of Weaselton and he is in charge of your kingdom's…ah…well…"

"Ah, yes your majesty," Henry bowed. "I am your Spymaster."

"You were spying on me?" Mordred said with a frown. "The whole time I was rambling around the kingdom?"

"Those were my orders at the time."

"You watched me do everything?"

"Aye your majesty, but I am old and forgetful."

Arthur tried not to grin when he noticed that the Bear King was slightly blushing. "I thought you had left to go to Avalon?" he quickly asked. "Why are you not there with the Lady of the Lake?"

"I am with the Lady," the spy answered.

"Then where is she?" King Guethelin," said as the tall red deer looked around.

"She and her attendants are in the field below tending to the wounded," Henry sighed as he spread out his paws in a sign of resignation. "I know it is beneath her position, but you know she has always been a healer first and then a prophetess."

"How did you know where to find us?" Merlin began to ask and then he hesitated before he answered his own question. "Those damned cards told her. One day I'm going to figure out how those things work."

"You of all wizards should know it's magic!" Arthur scoffed. "Now back to our plans."

On the field below, the small otter had pulled back her gown's sleeves as she ordered the nuns, who had come with her, and the other healers around. "Boil that water and then wash your paws!" she snapped out as she soaked a torn cloth in a bucket of vinegar before she wiped out a wolf warrior's deep cut. Gripping the cut, she began to stitch the wound close. "Stop whimpering, I thought you were a big brave wolf?"

"Milady could at least let me have a swig or two of the whiskey to dull the pain," the wolf grumbled. He winced as the needle poked into his skin. "Ow!"

"The whiskey is for those who need it more than you!"

There was a hissing sound followed by a scream of pain as a hot iron cauterized where a bear had lost his arm near his elbow. "By all the gods, be more careful and don't catch his fur aflame! Turning, she slapped the wolf's paw as she grabbed away a sticky jar. "That honey is for the wounds, it helps heal them! Keep your grimy claws out of the jar."

"But I'm hungry!" the warrior whined.

Nick sat back with a sigh, sure as a cop he had been trained in first aid, but it was of little use when he knew that he was on his own and without a first aid kit. He wasn't trying to stabilize and keep someone alive until a fully equipped medical team arrived. There was no modern ambulance service to take these soldiers to a hospital and the sad reality was that even if some of the more wounded survived the night, an infection might still set in and claim his life in the future.

There was a gasp as a dying warrior was put out of his pain by his comrade, a sure swift death was better than a long painful lingering demise.

"You warned me that many of my kinsmammals would not return home for the harvest and there will be starvation in the coastal villages this winter," Heretoga said to Gawain, who had gingerly assisted him getting his arm set into a makeshift sling. "I did not think it would be this many, what will Arthur do with us now?"

"What would you do if you had won?" the bear asked.

"Never leave an enemy behind."

"Sir Ector, the bear who raised me and Arthur, told us that you boars had not always been our enemies. That many of your ancestors came here at the invitation of the Legionnaires to guard the coast."

"Many of our villages are generations upon generations old."

"Then if we have been allies in peace before, why can't we one day become so in the future?"

"There is great turmoil across the sea, raiders will come from our homeland along with those seeking land," the boar said as he tried to get comfortable. "They will come especially if this year's winter is as cold as this past year."

"Raiders always come," Gawain sighed and then handed the boar the jug of mead he had been drinking. "But after today, they may have second thoughts about tangling with Arthur."

The sun was setting by the time the army had begun to recover enough and the dead had been buried in a mass grave by the old stones. Sir Lionel, along with several of the other fallen bulls, were all burned in a funeral pyre as was their Family's tradition and then the slain warrior's ashes thrown to the wind.

"Come morning we march towards the rams," Urien, the new Bull King agreed with Arthur as the kings and knights sat around the fire with their supper. "I want to punish Aldroen for breaching the wall and the death of my father."

Nick grabbed Merlin's arm and pulled the wizard in the black cloak away into the growing darkness. "I did what you wanted, it is past time that you go and get that probe to come and take me back to Judy!"

"That was our agreement," Merlin sighed as he reached for the pocket watch in his medallion. "I'll be…"

A bright flash went off from inside of the tall ring of stones as red smoke began to seem to rise from inside the mound.

"Merlin?" Arthur called out to the old goat as the bear stood and drew his sword. "What's going on?"

Nick sniffed the air and he realized that the sulfur smell of the smoke was familiar. "Smoke bombs?" he muttered towards the goat, who had begun to follow the kings and knights towards the old stones.

Nick turned to chase after them when he heard a voice behind him. "You don't want to miss what is going to happen now!" a figure standing in the shadows in a black cloak called out.

Nick stepped back, as he drew his knife when he saw the figure in the shadows. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"Not yet," the figure replied as he pulled back his hood and two long ears stood erect above a very fox looking face. "But, I'm your son."

* * *

**An Irish warlord name Aenghus was the son of Nadfrech, the king of Munster, and he died during the battle of Cell Oshnadha in 489. **

**The fianna were Irish warbands which were composed of aristocratic landless young men who were quartered and fed by the nobility during the winter and hunted during the summer.**

**Yes, vinegar and honey are old folk health remedies. Vinegar and water will raise the wounds PH and make it antibacterial to some degree. Honey also has some antibacterial properties, along with a unique pH balance which promotes oxygen and healing compounds to a wound.**


	50. The Pendragon Arises!

**Chapter 50: The Pendragon Arises!**

* * *

"**_I'm in an awful pickle. I'm king!"_**

Arthur (Wart) in the _Sword in the Stone._

**Nick finally meets his son and they go into the future to try to free Judy, where Nick meets Natasha. In the past, Arthur is proclaimed High King of the North.**

* * *

**489**

"My son?" Nick asked as he looked fox with the long ears. "You're my son?"

"Yeah, I guess it's past time that we finally met," Ricky chuckled. "Now watch what…"

"Where's your mother?" Nick frantically cut off his son's words as he grabbed the tod buck by his shoulders. "Is she okay?"

"She's…she's…" the hybrid began to reply. There was jubilant shouting from below and Ricky looked past his father towards the gathering near the ancient mound. "Look, they found the crown…"

"Where is your mother!" the fox now had a tight embrace on his son.

Ricky closed his eyes, he had dreamt of this day and he hugged the fox back. "Where's your mother?" Nick asked yet again. "Can you take me to your mother?"

There was shouting and then cries of astonishment coming from the field below them. Glancing with slight disappointment towards the excitement on the field below, Ricky grabbed his father's arm tighter and willed himself to jump into the future.

* * *

**The Future**

"She's been like this since after Ricky's birth," Doctor Sarah Longleggs said as she tapped the door with her key card to open it so that Nick could enter the room. Inside the gray-furred rabbit was in a healthcare chamber. "We first took her as dead, but then we realized that the medical nanobots were still operational, but were not moving. That is when we understood that she was caught in some kind of time loop or time event. After years of research, we have determined that she is partially out of phase with time itself."

"What the hell does that mean?" Nick frantically snapped as he put his paws upon the chamber's glass. "How can we save her?"

"In reality, she is both here, and at the same time she is not," the maned wolf answered as she opened the pod and watched as Nick reached for his wife. The fox's paws seemed to pass right through the body as he gave a whimper.

"Carrots! JUDY!" he frantically called out. "Come back to us…to me!"

Rick had joined him and the hybrid had tears in his eyes as he sniffled, "Dad, I'm so sorry because this is my entire fault. If I hadn't been born, she would have never been hurt."

"No son, you shouldn't blame yourself. We didn't know this would happen, it's not your fault."

"I don't know what to do? No one can even touch her, it's like she is fading away from us."

"I'm sure that the scientist will figure something out," Nick confidently said with false bravado in his voice.

Even as they hugged, Ricky reached out and touched his mother's arm. His eyes opened in surprise when he actually felt her fur, apparently, his contact with his father was enough to let him actually touch his mother and he desperately pushed his father back when he felt something strange happening to him. "I can…" he began to say, but suddenly his eyes glowed white at first and then they went pitch black. The hybrid had a look of wonder upon his face and then with a blink, he disappeared!

Ricky felt the darkness as much as he saw that he was actually in the space between time. "Mommy?" he called out to the gray-furred rabbit, who was also floating there in the darkness. Gripping her arm tighter, he closed his eyes and willed himself to time jump five minutes into the future.

The pain was intense and he cried out into the darkness. His arms were wrapped around his mother as his mind began to lose control of reality, suddenly it felt like someone or something had pulled him free and tossed him into time again.

Nick saw his son reappear after what seemed like forever, the tod buck was screaming in pain as he collapsed on the cold white tiles. "Ricky, what happened," the fox yelled as he gripped the hybrid into his arms. "Ricky?"

There were the sounds of a medical team rushing down the hallway.

"Dad?" Rick's eyes fluttered open and weakly he wiped the blood from his muzzle. He blinked his amethyst eyes as he looked up towards where his mother still laid unmoving. "I found her in a void and tried to time jump with her, but I failed." With a sudden gasp, he leaned over and vomited onto the tiles, before he collapsed into unconsciousness.

There were the sounds of a machine's rhymic beeping and it caused his long ears to twitch. "It was the strain of what he tried to do, it almost killed him," the voice of the Professor was explaining to someone. "His reaction was similar to when I tried to use the watch to jump back into time to when the legends of the Lamb began."

"She's real," the hybrid mumbled out loud, surprising everyone in the room. "I went there and she saw me, time stopped before she sent me away."

"Are you telling us that the Holy Lamb really does exist?" the Professor quickly asked.

"I think I surprised her," Ricky softly and bitterly answered. "That is when I realized what I truly was, an anomaly…an abomination…something which should not exist…rejected by God herself."

"Son," Nick sighed as he took the hybrid's paw. "You are not any of those things."

A very attractive arctic wolf entered the room and looked down at Ricky, "So you told me that you were leaving to make sure Arthur became king and who do you return with, but your father? " she said as she reached down and kissed him on his muzzle. "Have you messed up history again?"

"I don't think and even if I did, it is my own that I screwed up," Ricky replied.

Nick's eyebrow went up when he saw his son's tail wag at the sight of the wolf. "So son, are you going to introduce me to your friend?" he asked.

"I'm Natasha and it's not just friend, I am his fiancée, at least once he takes me back to get Nockotia's permission to marry him," she answered for the hybrid.

"Who's Nockotia?" Nick asked in confusion.

"My first wife," Ricky quickly answered. "We got married when I was younger."

"Wait…wait…how many wives do you have?"

"I'm not currently married, but Nockotia was my first wife,"

"First wife?"

"We were married for seventy-five years before she passed away," Ricky shrugged. "You might have met her back before I was born, she one of the foxes with the tribe at the pond. She wore the same red-feathered clock at our mating ceremony which mom wore in yours."

"Son just how old are you and how many wives have you had?"

"Well technically my birth started back in 489…," Ricky began to explain.

"Let's just say he's really old and he has been married only once," The Professor interjected as he reentered the room. "Now you said that you were able to actually touch your mother this time, tell me about this void."

"Merlin, my son is tired and needs to rest," Nick snapped back. "Let's let him get some sleep before you bombard him with questions." The fox stood to leave, but he felt his son grasp his paw.

"Stay with me dad," Ricky asked in a desperate tone. Natasha had taken a seat on the other side of the bed and the she-wolf was slowly rubbing the hybrid's long ears. "Just stay here, I don't want to wake up and find out that this was just another dream."

"I'll be here when you awaken," Nick said with a smile as he took the chair on the other side of the bed from the wolf. "Now that I know I have a son, I'll always be there for you." He watched as the fox with long ears sighed and closed his eyes while he still clutched his father's paw as if he feared that he would be like another wisp of time and disappear, as so many he loved before had done.

Natasha stood up and scratched her neck. "Nick you need to know that as a baby, Ricky almost didn't survive. The doctors finally deduced that he needed to be with another time anomaly or to be specific, another you from a different time stream. It was a male fox by the name of Nicolaus, who came from the same future that the other Judy, the one who became Judith Laverne Warren and brought Al Catpone to justice. Like her, he too somehow survived into this time steam. We discovered that he had a time ripple, or maybe we should call it an energy, which surrounded him and Ricky drew energy from this other Nick. In his and his wife Maria's care, Ricky not only survived but was even allowed to lead a somewhat normal childhood among family and friends."

"My son was raised by another version of me?"

"This went on until Ricky reached puberty and then his powers began to manifest themselves and like any child, he played with them to the detriment of history. To repair the damage, Project Chronos was created and the Professor worked hard to re-balance time itself. This went on for years in the past, before we even knew it was Ricky, we thought it was someone or something we called Aion."

"So my son broke time?"

"Yes and no...it's complicated."

Nick rubbed his arm and slowly worked his paw free from his apparently sleeping son's grasp. With a toothy yawn, he stretched and then looked around. "You wouldn't happen to have any coffee around this place?" he said with a smile. "It's actually been ages since I've had a cup of nice hot java."

"Coffee is now outlawed, the city authorities are concerned about caffeine abuse disorders," Natasha tried to answer his question while she kept a straight face. "It causes cognitive, behavioral, and physiological symptoms, which led to it being banned."

"They banned coffee!" Nick almost whimpered in surprise. "This isn't the future, its hell!"

"Her warped sense of humor is one of the reasons I love her," Ricky softly called out from the bed. "The nurse can get you a nice hot cup of coffee or tea." He grunted as he rolled over onto his side and pulled the covers tighter.

"What the hell?" Nick exclaimed when he suddenly realized that his son was no longer the thirty or so year old tod, but had changed to that of a twelve-year-old.

"Oh dear, he's really overextended himself this time," Natasha whispered. "He's lost control of his body. He has that ability to change his own age and sometimes it is rather annoying."

"He can change his age too?"

"I once went to sleep with a thirty-year-old in my arms and awoke in the middle of the night to find that he had changed into a teenager," she answered with a frown. "And no, I am not one of those perverts. I'm just glad he changed back again."

"I can see how that could be…ah strange," Nick chuckled. The she-wolf could smell the fox was embarrassed.

"Look, we love each other and we are two grown adults…" she began to explain.

"No need to apologize, I think my son is more than old enough for me not to judge what he does."

There was a whimper from the bed and both Nick and Natasha looked to see the hybrid was now a child and his foot was thrashing as if he was dreaming about being chased. Nick walked over and took his son's paw again and whatever nightmare seemed to go away as Ricky changed back to an older adult.

"I'll get your coffee," Natasha whispered as she left the room.

* * *

**489**

The red smoke seemed to bellow from the old burial mound itself, there was a rotten egg smell of sulfur to the smoke and the warriors who stared at it in astonishment wondered if the gates of the underworld had opened to unleash the minions of undead upon the land. Merlin, dressed in his black raven feathered cloak, had rushed through their ranks, past Arthur and the gathered kings, before he fearlessly plunged into the smoke. Right behind him ran the small otter known as the Lady of the Lake, they were gone for but a new minutes before they reemerged coughing from the smoke. The Lady was clutching a white linen cloth bundle.

"Out of the way!" Merlin commanded. The very tip of his staff flickered and suddenly flames shot from it as he waved it, sending some of the warriors to stumble out of his way. "Bring torches!" he bellowed as he escorted the Lady of the Lake towards the trail which led up to the top of Mons Badon. "Hurry!"

The kings and knights, followed by many of the warriors, rushed after them as they ascended the small mountain's side and to its summit. There on the flat rock, surrounded by warriors and knights holding flaming torches and being watched by the kings, the Lady of the Lake reverently sat the bundled down. Slowly and carefully, she peeled back the white cloth which everyone soon quickly realized was one of Uther's dragon banners, in the center was an old crown. "The crown of the High King of the North!" the Hart King proclaimed as he knelt and crossed himself. "Lost to us since the days of Constans."

"The Dragon of the North has awoken!" Merlin intoned. "He has awoken at this our hour of need and has proclaimed that the Pendragon has arisen!"

"Arthur is the Pendragon!" Urien the Bull King shouted out as he lifted his huge war ax over his horns. "Let us proclaim him High King over all the lands of the north!" They looked around, but the bear was not among their ranks, instead, they saw him at the far end of the field standing with the moon to his back. I the darkness, illuminated by the moon's light, the unarmored bear looked more like a farmer then he did a military war leader.

"Come, Arthur, the gods have proclaimed you our High King!" King Maelgwn called to him as the wolf waved him to join them. "Come and speak with us."

Arthur argued that he did not want the crown, but finally, King Guethelin called for a vote and it was unanimous. The five great houses, which were present on the mountain top that night, voted Arthur as their lord, only the House of Cwningen and the House of Defaid were absent. Dressed again in his scale mail and with his great sword Caliburn in its sheath, tightly belted around his waistcoat, he removed his helmet while he came forth between the rows of warriors and knights holding flaming torches. Kneeling before the Lady of the Lake, who was daintily perched upon the huge outstretched hoofs of the Bull King, he listened as King Guethelin gave a priestly benediction and then the prophetess firmly placed the crown upon Arthur's head.

"Children of the North, the Pendragon has once again arisen!" King Guethelin finally proclaimed.

Merida leaned forward and watched with interest as each of the kings knelt down in front of Arthur as they swore their loyalty, the highland she-bear saw a look of what appeared to be fear in the newly proclaimed High King's eyes. "Oh Wart, what have ya bloody well gone and done now laddie?" she whispered to herself. Then Mordred came forth and the Bear King too knelt, but she didn't see the look of joy that the other kings gave Arthur. No, what she thought she saw was a brief look of doubt instead and maybe, just maybe, the growing flames of jealousy?


	51. Arthur's Grave

**Chapter 51: Arthur's Grave **

* * *

_**"But Arthur's grave is nowhere seen, whence antiquity of fables still claims that he will return."**_

William of Malmesbury

**Three time travelers gather at Arthur's grave and in the past, Tristian tells the sad tale of Arthur's death. **

* * *

**1465**

There was a cool nip in the air and from atop of the small hill, they could see the surrounding trees were turning the bright red, yellow, and golden hues of fall. Above them, birds soared through the blue, cloudless sky as the ringing of a bell from the nearby monastery called the faithful to the afternoon service. The three monks standing on the crest of the hill did not go and join their brethren in their dutiful prayers but instead stood around a weathered old gray rock.

"So this is his final resting place?" the reddish-orange furred fox looking creature asked as he pushed back the cowl of his brown robe and let his pair of long rabbit-like ears stand erect. "I thought that Arthur was the once and future king, to return to us when he was needed?"

"That is just a rumor, part of the legend of the king," the old goat answered with a sigh. "A folk tale that gives hope to those who feel they need it."

"You mean the serfs?" an older fox added. "But still Professor, after all of that, is it true that he only ruled the northern part of this island for a just few years? I still don't understand why all of what he did was so important for the future?"

"Nick, as I told you that day on Mount Badon," the goat named the Professor began to explain. "Arthur is more of an inspiration, he is an ideal of what a king should strive to become. He is the king who, to paraphrase the stage play's lines, ruled a bright and shinning kingdom upon the hill. Arthur is the heroic model of the noble king, who along with his great Roundtable of chivalrous knights, battle to protect the meek from those who would abuse them."

"Knights who would follow a tradition that right makes might and not the other way around," the long-eared fox looking hybrid added.

"That's correct Ricky," the Professor chuckled. "Right makes might and not might makes right."

"Was Mordred really his downfall?" Nick asked as he put his paw on the cold stone. "I thought those two were cousins and Arthur stood for him when they debated making him the Bear King?"

"King Arthur ruled for twenty years, an unusually long and peaceful time during an age of great turbulence. But in all of that time, Mordred was in the shadows of a greater king and finally jealously corrupted him. Ultimately, he used some minor slight for the reason to raise a rebellion and his treachery led the Battle of Camlann, where both he and Arthur perished by each other's paws."

"It's odd that he will go into the stories as an illegitimate son who betrayed his own father," Ricky softly said. "That is a long cry from the reality of being both Arthur's cousin and a good king who went bad at the end. But then again, these are the same writers which have Guinevere cheating with a made up bear named Lancelot, when she was actually always Arthur's loyal wife until her own death."

"The flash grenade and the smoke bombs you set off the night after the battle where very dramatic," The Professor laughed. "The bombs scared everyone and they all thought that the dead had arisen. Those battle toughened warriors and knights, who had gathered nearby were impressed when I, being Merlin, entered the smoke to find the crown you had left upon the green grass. I didn't go in there alone, the Lady of the Lake was right there next to me, she found the crown and recognized it as belonging to Constans. By the way Ricky, where did you find that crown?"

"I took it before Vortigern's warriors got their paws unto it the night they murdered Constans," the hybrid answered. "The hardest part was sneaking onto the mound when everyone was busy. I also swiped Uther's first dragon banner and used it to wrap around the crown."

"Once we found that and the crown, no one dared object to King Guethelin when he proclaimed that it was a miracle and that the gods had ordained that Arthur was the true High King of the North. Even Constantine bowed his knee to Arthur when he and his army of rams and goats arrived in the morning."

"It had to be the crown, I couldn't figure out to make a sword stay in the stone without using a lot of electrical magnetism from some kind of generators," Ricky laughed. "I wanted Arthur to pull Excalibur from the stone, like in the stories, but the generators were beyond my ability to carry and would make a hell of a lot of noise."

"I was surprised to find out that neither you nor Nick were around to watch Arthur's crowning?"

"I made him take me to his mother," Nick answered instead of his son. "Then I almost lost him too, when tried to free her from time."

"I will never give up trying to free her!" Rick passionately snarled. "One day I will be strong enough to defeat time itself!"

"You need to be careful," Nick said as he drew his son into his loving embrace. "I couldn't live if I lost both of you."

"So Professor, are you all dressed up as a monk because you are writing the legend of Arthur?" Ricky asked.

"No, I am not writing it myself," the old goat laughed. "I am just sparking the imagination of an imprisoned knight named Thomas Malleorre and he is doing the writing. He just needs to be guided in the right direction as he writes his story. _The Whole Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table _is what he is calling it, but I'll see that it gets changed to _Le Morte d'Arthur _before publication.

They stood around for a few moments and looked at the grave. "This isn't exactly the Isle of Avalon is it?" Ricky sighed. "The legend of Arthur being taken away in a boatload of maidens is much more romantic than having him buried under a rock."

"There is always the mysterious cave in the western mountains," the Professor added.

"After all Arthur did, this land will fall to the sea boars," Nick sighed out. "All that blood for only a few years of peace. Others will come and battle the boars over this land and then the Church will return in 1066 to conquer it all in the name of their gods."

"Wars will continue, then King Richard will ascend to the throne and his no-good brother Prince John will try to steal the crown," the Professor added.

"Hey what really happened to Galahad?" Nick suddenly asked. "I know the stories of his quest for the Holy Grail were written much later, did he ever get his girl?"

"He and Aideen ran away together to the great woods of what became Sherwood Forest, there they lived in peace and had many children. One of their descendants was Maid Marion of the Robin Hood fame. Both her and Robin's bloodlines are in you two," the Professor chuckled.

"I had no idea?" Nick said as he put his arm over Rick's shoulder. "So we are actually descendants of the great Robin Hood?"

"Not only that, but Ricky was married to Nockotia and she is Galahad's first cousin," the Professor continued.

"He is her first cousin?" Ricky groaned out with a smile. "I'm a descendant of Galahad and I was sleeping with his first cousin, now I feel like a sexual deviant. Maybe it's a good thing that she and I didn't have any kits?"

"It's not like the two of them didn't try enough," Nick whispered to the goat. "He's got his mother in him when it comes to that."

"Young and in love," the Professor whispered back. "As they say where Nicky and Maria live, that's amore!"

"Hey, I also got her ears!" Rick snapped as he pointed at his long rabbit-like ears. "I can hear you two and speaking of wives, I'm going home to Natasha." He suddenly blinked away.

"Damnit he left me behind!" Nick groaned as he turned to face the old goat. "So how's the food in the monastery?"

"It's a medieval monastery full of goats and sheep, so I think that you're not going to be very welcomed," the Professor answered. "There are not really any foxes in the Church during this time period."

"Figures, so I guess I'll just hide in the woods until he remembers he left his old dad stuck in the past, it's too bad I can't get one of the watches to work for me."

"They would only work for you if you had mom with you," a voice spoke up from behind them.

Nick turned to face his son, who was now there in jeans and a tee-shirt. "I figured that you were in such a rush to get back in Natasha's arms that you forgot me."

"Well you were the one commenting about the squeaky bed at Uncle Nicky and Aunt Maria's place when I was married to Nockotia," the hybrid shrugged and then gave him a grin. "So I came back for you later, once I rested from our previous time jumps. It's only been a few moments since I left, at least for you. Come on let's go see mom!" Ricky grabbed his father's paw and they disappeared.

With a sigh, the Professor put a hoof on the stone again and then looked down at the monastery. "Well Wart, I guess it's time for this old goat to get back to work, so rest easy my old friend," he said to the occupant of the grave. After that, he began his trek back towards the gray stone walls which beckoned him, and as he walked he fumbled in his robe and pulled out a modern granola bar. "How do these monks live only on oat gruel?" he scoffed.

* * *

**512**

"It twas only three years ago, upon this very day, when the Crown of the North was lost to us yet again during that ill-fated battle of Camlann," the handsome red fox, with strands gray in his muzzle, said to the vixen who had handed him a wooden bowl of dark ale. "Aye, I remember it well, the black smoke drifted across the battlefield and behind me I could seeth the great bear illuminated by the red flames which were brightly burning in the early morning as they consumed house after house in the nearby village. Around me twas a scene of utter chaos and devastation, as spears struck shields and swords clanged against other swords. There twas no more shield wall and the battle hath instead becometh desperate struggle of warrior against warrior, as one time friends killed or twere slain from the blows of former friends and allies. Even sons fought against fathers and brother battled brother upon that bloody field."

"Tristan, rest for thou hast come a long way south," Aideen said as she took a seat upon a bench near the cottage's peat fire. "Thou must rest thy leg after such a trek."

"Leave him be wife," Galahad chuckled. "This is a tale which must be told."

Tristan sipped the ale and leaned forward on the stool. Around him several young tods and vixens had gathered in anticipation. "I sawth brave Arthur raised Caliburn above his head and the great blade twas stained with the blood of those who hath once battled by his side in many a shield wall. "Mordred!" the High King snarled as he saw the Bear King before him. "You have brought ruination upon us all!"

Yet Mordred snarled at the sight of Arthur, before he responded, "You let the boars stay on our island and now look what they have done Arthur! Caer Lundein has fallen and they march north upon us."

"Gawain met them with the army at near the old ruins of Isurium and drove them back south and there were those loyal boars from the coastal villages who fought by his side. Good Sir Heretoga too fell in battle next to Gawain as a loyal knight of the kingdom," our good and brave High King replied.

"Still they will not stop, they will come again. I was a fool to believe in you and your peace!" Mordred snarled back.

Then smoke wafted between them, temporarily blinding each king from the other, Arthur instead saw the carnage around him. Nearby, Sir Cai lay lifeless upon the ground and not far, in the middle of a pile of dead foes, was the body of Sir Bors, the large bull's broken sword still clutched in his hoofs.

Suddenly I heard Mordred shout as he madly rushed through the smoke, his sword twas raised above his head for a downward killing stroke. I was surprised when Arthur dropped mighty Caliburn onto the grass below his paws and picked up a long spear instead. In his reckless haste, Mordred impaled himself upon the spear, its iron tip piercing not only his chest, but driving itself thought his very body. At first, the Bear King looked down at the wood haft in surprise and then with a mighty snarl, he angrily pulled himself along its blood-streaked shaft until he almost reached Arthur. With the last of his dying strength, he stuck the High King with such a blow that Arthur fell to the ground mortally wounded.

"I had fallen myself, with the wound in my leg that plagues me yet today and from where I panted with pain and weariness, I saw good Sir Percival kneel next to Arthur, I could hear the bear argue with the knightly fox and then Percival picked up mighty Caliburn and with a heavy heart took it away from the field of battle. We few who had survived the terrible battle gathered beside the king. "Remember thy knightly vows!" he told us. "Uphold the Code of the Knights which we hath sworn so many times around the Round Table." With tears in our eyes, we said those vows as we stood over Arthur's now silent body. Vows that we few still say today.

"Tell us the vows please Uncle Tristian!" many of the young foxes called out.

Tristian stood up straight as Galahad handed him his spear, which he held pointing toward the roof and the heavens beyond as he said, "A knight is sworn to valor, His heart knows only virtue, His blade defends the helpless, His might upholds the weak, His word speaks only truth, and His wrath undoes the wicked."

Several of the young children looked back at their mother in surprise, for she too had quoted the oath just as her brother, their uncle, had said it. "What?" she asked them with a grin. "Did you not expect your mother not to know the Code? After all, I was there on the battlefield of Mons Badon with your Uncle Tristian, your father, and with Arthur!"

"What happened to Caliburn, King Arthur's sword?" a teenage tod asked.

"All Percival would tell us is that he returned it from whence it came," Tristian answered as he sat back down upon the stool. "He was sworn to secrecy by Arthur."

"Does the kingdom still stand?" another young fox asked.

"Aye, good King Constantine sits upon the throne," Tristian replied. "As for fair Queen Guinevere, after Arthur's death, her heart twas broken and she hath become a nun. All of the Seven Houses doth still stand, except the House of Foroedd, which after the Fisher King's demise hath left the land now looks only to the sea. The brave Tatánka too hath returned to that island in the great ocean, from there they hath swore to return to reconquer their homeland now that the Shunka warak'in are no more."

"Now come on children," Aideen called out as she stood up. "We need to get the place cleaned up and we have a brace of chickens to prepare for dinner. Our friends are coming over tonight to hear your uncle sing a few songs and if you all are very good, he will sing to you the tale of Bedivere and Arawen, along with the Rise of the Brotherhood of the Red Paw and the Battle of the Old Stone Bridge."

* * *

**Thomas Malleorre or Thomas Malory, is the author of **_**Le Morte d'Arthur**_** or the Death of Arthur. **_**"For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery", **_**is written at the end of Books I–IV, in the printing by William Caxton. **

**The ruins of Isurium are an old Roman fort located in North Yorkshire. **

**The Code of the Knights printed in this chapter is taken from the movie **_**Dragonheart**_ **and may be attributed to the writers Patrick Read Johnson and Charles Edward Pogue. Seeing Dennis Quaid as the knight Bowen, knelling in the falling rain while he recites the Code before the tomb of King Arthur is one of the most moving Arthurian movie scenes ever. **


	52. Time Renewed

**Chapter 52: Time Renewed**

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"**_...it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough."_**  
T.H. White, _The Once and Future King_

**Aion, who was once Ricky and Waah-i-ald, is determined to save his mother from her fate. The cost he might have to pay is steep. **

* * *

**September 14, 1925**

His clothes were soaked from where he had waded into the swamp and he now knelt in the road's muddy gravel as he held the broken watch in his paw, its power coursed through his hands with a burning sensation. "So we have come to this?" a kindly feminine voice asked from behind him and Aion turned to see that there was a very beautiful ewe standing there in a black sequenced evening dress, he immediately knew who she really was.

"You're dressed as a flapper?" he softly scoffed as he stood up to face her. "I didn't take you for one who would partake in the so-called sins of bootleg gin and jazz music?"

"Perhaps you would rather see me as others think I should appear?" she asked as she shapeshifted into a meek-looking lamb in white robes. "I believe this is the way I looked when you last saw me?"

Aion didn't experience the fear he used to feel at the sight of what he knew was the one real God, but almost contempt. "You tried to teach us compassion, but still you allowed this cheetah to be gunned down by Al Catpone's ruthless killers," he simply stated in an accusatory tone. "You let them build grand cathedrals in your name, instead of taking that money to feed those who starved. That Church of yours became a den of self-righteous iniquity, which has a history of putting thousands to their deaths for money, power, and religious fanaticism. You didn't stop them and that makes you a hypocrite!"

If the hybrid expected to be struck down by lightning, it didn't happen. Instead, the Lamb shook her head and sadly answered, "I gave all of mammalkind free choice, to decide for themselves what they should and should not do. Over the centuries, I have just given them guidance and some have stepped forward to fulfill that promise, such as Piberius is starting to do right now and Arthur has done in the past."

"Still Piberius will die from a bigot's bullet and Arthur fell in battle."

"You didn't come here to argue with me about religion, did you?"

He held the watch and stared at it for a few moments before he answered her question. "I was thinking that I can end this by destroying this watch. That maybe by doing so, it will free my mother from what I did to her and …"

"And free yourself from an eternity of living while others die around you?"

"Yes, it's that I'm just so tired of being so alone in this world."

"You never were alone and you know that. You had your father, your cousins and their children, Nockotia and her tribe, Natasha, the Professor, just to name a few of those who loved you."

"Still, they all died and are now dust, I'm left to remember and mourn. Why did you curse me?" he growled at her in sudden anger. "Why did you not let me have a loving mother? To leave her stuck in time was cruel! To leave me motherless was cruel!"

"Motherless? Were you ever really motherless? A ghostly apparition appeared of Maria holding him as a child in her arms. "You had a mother, a father, and a great many more who loved you as you were."

Thousands of apparitions appeared before him on the roadway, ghostly shapes of those he knew in life. Nockotia, Natasha, his father Nick, Nicolaus, Maria, and Fennec were there, his "cousins" Jason, Odysseus, Cassandra, Cassia, and their children, along with their children's children for many generations. Coyotes, foxes, and many more of Nockotia's…his tribe…floated before his eyes and he felt ashamed at what he had said to the Lamb.

"Come on and ask the question?" she challenged him. "Every mortal always asks me, what the purpose of his or her life was?"

"To make out of it what you will," was all he muttered.

"Have you done that?"

"NO!" he growled out. "I ran from time to time and saved the future! You never were there to help me in any way, you could have helped!"

"Like you helped others?" she softly asked. "Killing in the name of the greater good, when there were others you could have made their lives better instead."

"I did what I could!"

"Did you?" An image appeared of him purposely striding along an alleyway in some medieval town as he ate a chunk of cheese and bread. A starving beggar child put a paw out and called for food, but he just brushed past her. One ghostly memory after another passed by his eyes and he realized that he should have done more, not for history's sake, but for those in history who just needed some love and attention.

"Still they suffered because you were not there either!" he actually snarled at her. Then other images appeared, a friar in his robe caring for the sick, a young nurse holding a dying soldier's hoof, a college student taking the cash he had in his pocket and buying a homeless child a meal instead of a ticket to the game, on and on it went.

There was silence.

He held the watch tighter and looked around at the darkening swamp. "Are you here to stop me?" he finally asked. "To keep me from doing this, destroying the very thing which brought me to life?"

"It wasn't just the watch that did that, but your parent's love for each other. As for stopping you, like all the others you have free choice."

"If I do this, what will happen to Nockotia, Natasha, and my parents? Will they all live long and good lives?"

"Their lives will go on without knowing you and they will make of it what they choose, that is all I will tell you."

"Will I go to hell if I do this? I would guess this is like committing suicide?"

"There is no hell. That was only a creation made by those who wanted to scare others into doing what they wanted."

"Then is there a heaven?"

"Of course, but not like you think."

He sat back down into the mud and stared at the watch again. "I'm just so tired of being left behind," he finally sighed. When he looked up, she was gone. "That figures."

Taking the watch he hesitated before he tossed it into the woods and not back into the swamp where Tommy Clawhauser's body laid in his watery grave.

There was now nothing until he awoke with a start and reaching out, he ran his paw over the reddish-orange vixen's fur. She looked so beautiful in the early morning sunshine, which shone through the tent's open flaps. It was the morning after their second wedding and they had chosen to spend it in a tent pitched on a hillside which overlooked the sparkling blue-green sea in the distance. He could smell the smoldering smoke from the campfire outside and knew that he needed to get out from under the sheet to stoke it back to life so they could cook breakfast. His attention quickly moved from the fire back to his wife, when she gave a cute little toothy yawn. "Hey lazy bones, we need to get dressed for breakfast," he softly said.

Nockotia didn't say a word but instead reached her paw up to touch his cheek and then cupped the back of his head with her other paw as she pulled him willingly back under the sheet. They missed both breakfast and lunch that day, but neither one cared.

After all, the Lamb did say there was a heaven and perhaps his living this, his favorite day during his long life, over and over again without realizing it was her version of heaven?

* * *

**2018**

"So this is where we found the skeleton," a tired-looking otter wearing the light tan uniform of the city's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife said to the tall muscular horse dressed in a rumpled light grey suit. Detective Ronald Oates ran his hoof through the back of his auburn furred neck and then scratched the cream-colored mark that ran down his muzzle. "Some of the local boys were out frog gigging last night and their spear pulled up a bone, so one thing led to another."

Looking back at the slime encrusted partial skeleton, which had been laid out on a blue tarp, the detective sighed. "Definitely a medium-sized male feline and based on the few mud-soaked remains of clothing, I would say he died sometime in the pre-war part of the last century. Maybe the 1920s or 1930s, but I can't tell for sure," he said to his companions.

A much smaller rabbit in a light blue tactical uniform with dark blue impact plates joined him and knelt in the muck. "We found these embedded in the body," Judy said as she held up a plastic bag with a few bullets inside, and then she passed the bag to the detective. "There was nothing else." She could almost swear that there was once a pocket watch, but it had to have been her imagination.

"Forensics is waiting for the body, but based on the bullets we found I'd say it was a murder," a red fox in a dark blue uniform added as he joined them by the tarp. "No much to go on and that's for sure."

* * *

**So our story ends with part of the first chapter of our previous story, **_**Zooptopia: A Paradox in Time**_**. Without the watch, Nick and Judy do not go back into the past and time is seemingly restored to its "normal" course. But, this is not the ending of our series….**

* * *

**The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of****_ Zootopia: Out of Time_****:**

His protective boots crushed the blooming wildflowers underneath his feet and there was the hissing sound of his respirator as he breathed in and out. His white helmet's rebreathing filtration system always reminded him of the sound which Darth Vader made in the old Star Wars movies. Looking over, he saw the other researcher in a matching orange spacesuit looking environmental suit.

"Doug, do you have any ideas about where we are ?" Doctor Tony Newman called over his helmet's radio to his other human comrade as they stumbled further into the sunlit meadow. "The techs set the time tunnel to only go forward five minutes into the future and this definitely isn't the lab!"

"Seems like we are somewhere along the Aegean Sea coast, maybe Albania?" the other time traveler replied. "Sensors are picking up oxygen levels which are slightly higher than they should be and less pollution."

"I can't raise the base, can you?"

"Negative, you're the only signal I can pick up. Look there is a tent ahead!"

"Leave your helmet on until we figure out what is happening. Come on let's take a look inside, maybe there's someone in there who can tell us where we are?"

Carefully they threw back the tent flaps and peered inside, only to stare in surprise at the vixen who had quickly pulled a white cotton bedsheet to cover her nakedness. An equally naked looking male fox with strange long ears sat up and stared back at them. "What in God's name?" Doctor Newman called out in shock.

Then the male fox grabbed his head and yipped in pain as his eyes began to turn white.


End file.
